Michelle Kubilis Aaron Smith Senior Seminar 18 February 2016
Final Prospectus Asides – Poetry Chapbook Sometimes the words we don’t speak hold the most weight. Through my
poetry chapbook, I plan on exploring the theme of unspoken words through various topics, some of which will include love, family, friendships, and sexuality. We tend to fret ourselves over things that we could have / “should have” said, so this is a method of repossessing those static moments and freeing oneself from the burden of regret. It is reclamation of one’s voice to atone for silence. I will be naming this collection Asides because the readers will be delving into personal thoughts and feelings that were never divulged to the individuals to whom they were directed.
I will be writing twenty or so free verse poems centered on this theme, all
varying in length and with no set limitation on stanza form. Many of these pieces will be drawn from my personal life, but they are not limited to my own experiences. Each poem will be a retrospective exploration of the speaker’s desire to express their previously unspoken thoughts. Some pieces will focus on precise moments, and others will be broader generalizations of relationships and connections with other individuals.
I will be using two poetry collections—Christine Garren’s Afterworld and
Alicia Cook’s Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately—as writing references. Garren’s command of concise stanzas, imagery, metaphors, and calculated enjambment allow her to explore the rawness of humanity, and I will incorporate such devices into my
own writing. I hope to capture the vast spectrum of human experiences and elicit strong emotional responses from my readers. I am also inspired by Alicia Cook’s Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately, which is separated into two complimentary sections: Side A and Side B. Side A is composed of a series of poems that touches upon all aspects of the human condition, and Side B gives the material a twist by reproducing Side A in the form of blacked-out “found poetry.” This aligns with the premise of my chapbook, which explores the notion of retroactively “speaking up” and reclaiming past experiences. Although I won’t be replicating Cook’s writing style, I will be influenced by the concept of amending the past through modern perception.
I foresee myself finding some difficulty in capturing the many facets of
human nature. I want to capture a wide assortment of emotional tones in my chapbook through both positive and negative accounts, but this may be difficult because many of these situations are accompanied by feelings of remorse. Regret itself is not the basis of this collection, and I hope to focus on the cathartic nature of addressing these unsaid words. I will try to incorporate a variety of emotional experiences in my chapbook in order to explore the full human experience. This will steer me away from putting too much focus on negativities. (467 words)