Symbolism in literature.

"The Light That Calls Them Back" is a collection of 23 poems completed during my
three years of graduate studies. The poems in this collection are memory based and rely
on the use of metaphor to convey emotion. These writings were compiled to demonstrate
a range of poetic styles and subject matter. Most importantly, each poem in some way
deals with the poet's relationship to different places and the memories (often hazy or
inaccurate) associated with certain settings. Additional themes present throughout these
works are the loss that comes with both death and abandonment and the relationship
among visual art and images and poetry. The voice in these poems represents the poet in
different stages of life. Many of the poems appear to deal with mystical or fantastical
elements. These represent the poet's imagination and belief in the unexplained. Some are
meant to be taken literally, while others become metaphors or evidence of the poet's
desire to escape the ordinary world.

Like Salt for Bread is a sixteen poem creative thesis that explores the razorwire
balance of power and vulnerability. In some poems, the relationship seems
clearly defined by an aggressor or catalyst that threatens emotional and
sometimes physical violence. In the others, the balance shifts from the speaker to
another, alternates between one speaker and another, or even alters within the
speaker's consciousness. Regardless, each poem examines a moment that is not a
measure of time but a force that tends toward rotation- changes that occur
around the axes of authority and control. The resulting torque exposes
assumptions about long-standing myths, personal and popular.

Speak, Shade is a book of lyric verse indebted to the poetics of W. S. Merwinespecially
The Moving Target and The Lice- and late Paul Celan. It eschews
punctuation, and uses paradox, ambiguous syntax, derangement of the senses, and
surreal imagery among its tropes. Its themes include- but are not limited toblindness
as a spiritual condition, the inefficacy of the imagination before time and
death, the line between dream and reality, and the silence of God. Some motifs
occurring in the text are parts of the body, stars, books, light, mirrors, and shadows.

This novel is the first-person account of Max Rosenbloom, who has difficulty forming
personal relationships, difficulty telling the truth. He enters a Work-Study program to
graduate from High School, landing a job as an apprentice in a taxidermy shop operated
by Richard, who becomes a strong influence in his life.
Themes explored include what is art and what is not art within the framework of the
modernization of taxidermy techniques. Another theme is how Max deals with death of
his father and death of the animals that Max mounts in the course of his taxidermy
training. Finally, a major theme is explored concerning the conflict within Max, who has
trouble telling the truth and makes a conscious decision to lie in order to further his
career.

Bud and Scooter, two teenaged cousins, are making the trip of their young lives in
the midst of the Great Depression. Their family friend in rural Florida, Jake Gilchrist,
head of a poor family with three small children, has died while visiting his sick mother on
Long Island. His wife cannot afford to have his body shipped back by train for burial, so
Bud and Scooter volunteer for a goodwill mission and grand adventure: they take Bud's
father's pickup truck, drive a thousand miles up US 1, pick up Jake's body, pack it in ice,
and transport it back to Florida. Along the way they meet people (both common and
extraordinary), they work out their differences (with words and with fists), they come
face-to-face with beauty and goodness as well as with poverty and evil.. .and they get to
see the Empire State Building.

South Florida is a collective of eclectic personalities who often transplant
themselves from all across the country. They are often seeking a new
opportunity, or running away from the baggage of their past. This collection of
fiction stories seeks to explore the lives of the people who populate the area
and serve the rest of the world who descend on the area annually seeking their
own personal one to two week paradise. The collection sees those often living
lives of quite desperation, while at the same time returning to their jobs in the
service industry night after night smiling. Juxtaposing the faith-based life
against the backdrop of the night life, the characters are all on a journey to
discover their own paradise the area offers. Sometimes they find it in small
moments they experience. Sometimes they find it on the open road leaving.

I believe art can offer an antidote to our numbness and rekindle a sense of childlike
wonder. Reclaiming Wonder is an installation in which I aim to explore the
possibility of evoking the curiosity of childhood in the viewer’s mind and transporting
him or her into a dreamlike atmosphere to wander about in wonder through the use of the
senses of sight, touch, and hearing.

Only The Body Remembers is a collection of poems, lyric essays, and short stories
that explore several subjects, including love (both romantic and familial), loss, grief,
sexuality, identity, and obsession. The primary thematic thread that binds this collection
together is somatic memory -- the way the body records experiences, and the strong
emotional charge these recorded experiences carry.

My thesis exhibition will manifest a visual language I developed to express things I sense
but cannot explain. I will create a sacred space, people by paper silhouettes, to
communicate what it feels like to be alive while acknowledging different realities. Each
silhouette figure I make has its own character and expresses specific things, including
care, confusion, excitement, play, and wonder. These are all facets of my own
experiences in life. The white silhouettes are anchored to a physical reality. The
chromatic silhouettes are complicated by color. They are more difficult to make out –
they are more vulnerable and ambiguous. I am peopling the installation with many
silhouettes. This expresses the range of experiences I have had with people, as well as the
many possibilities that exist for human interaction.
I will create a translucent cylindrical environment that is specifically lit, with two layers
of fabric. I will embed over two thousand hand-cut paper figures within this environment.
One plane will represent the physical world that we all access and experience via our five senses. The other plane will express another realm – one that references spiritual or
otherwise non-physical realities.
In addition, I will exhibit a series of framed collages and a compilation of video clips that
have informed the development and process of my work.

The Brooch of Clytemnestra follows the adventures Margaret O'Brien, age thirteen, encounters when her family returns to the United States after living in Venezuela for ten years. Set in 1963, in the fictional town of Desolasol, located on southeastern coast of Florida, the O'Brien family must cope with cultural, social and religious changes in order to adjust to life in the U.S. The story takes place over the course of one week in story present in Florida, and over the course of one year in story past in Venezuela. The protagonist, Meg, runs afoul of the gods, when she unwittingly incurs the wrath of Zeus, who, along with the Pantheon of Greek gods, is summering on the coast in Desolasol. Meg is a normal girl, without magical powers. However, to protect herself, and her family, she must become willing to stand up to Zeus.