All the Clawed Feet of Winged Gods

Author

Samantha CastoFollow

Date of Award

Fall 12-5-2022

Degree Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW)

Department

English

Committee Chair/First Advisor

Professor Jenny Sadre-Orafai

Co-Chair

Professor Christopher Martin

Abstract

All the Clawed Feet of Winged Gods is a manuscript in free verse poetry, lyric essay, and visual art, exploring the intersections of creating art, natural processes and laws, and processing trauma. Samantha explores the reverberating nature of generational and unknown traumas, as well as recent and experienced traumas, and their profound impacts on all our relationships, including parent-child relationships, romantic partner relationships, and our relationship with ourselves. Moving between expressions, revelations, and visual echoes including image and text, the manuscript charges toward the final section, in which Samantha conducts a number of poetic experiments in order to try to “erase,” “reverse,” or “Close the Loop,” as the title of two of her “Experiment” poems reflect. A mix of free verse, erasure, and prose poems, all sectioned by visual echoes, lead the reader from start to finish through the collection, bookended by two hard hitting lyric essays—the first setting the tone and the last offering no conclusion but rather a small sense of closure.