Date of Award
Spring 4-28-2025
Degree Name
Master's of Professional Writing
Department
English
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Garrard Conley
Second Advisor
Jenny Sadre-Orafai
Abstract
1322.house is my acknowledgment of how far I have come. The 1322 is my childhood address, the dot is my recognition of technology – something I have not embraced yet learned to accept – and my house was the cradle of my life. I grew up in a house in the Bronx, down the block from the projects that would eventually become famous for birthing hip hop. I loved that house and loved my childhood. I was proud not to grow up in those projects, within view every time I looked out my window. The house was wrongfully claimed by the City of New York and when nobody was home, they entered the property and destroyed our belongings. I can still see some things in the garbage in the driveway, other things rolling down the street, papers blowing in the wind. I wonder about all the things I wrote back then, my personal triumphs and tragedies abandoned in a trash heap somewhere. That is the basis for this project. Life yielding loss – loss of many kinds.