Abstract

This dissertation is a collection of poems that investigates the subject of absence and the ways in which absence inspires and mediates desire. With language functioning as a predominant theme and the study of language as a predominant feature in the poems, the poet theorizes even the desire to speak as dialogic, therefore a site of contact and contest between speakers, lovers, as much as within the Whitmanian multitude self. Poems that thematize lesbian desire, family migrations, and second-language learning (appearing in Spanish/English translations) are performed through various autobiographical gazes. Poems also appear in a range of poetic forms, from narrative and personal lyric in long and short lines, traditional forms and meters, to single-sentence stanzas, prose poems, concrete and ekphrastic. Primary influences on this work include poetry by Asian American School poets, like Marilyn Chin, Mei Mei Berssenbrugge, Li-Young Lee, and Eugene Gloria, as much as poetry belonging to eras of Spanish language traditions, including work by Pablo Neruda, Idea Vilariño and Gabriela Mistrál.