Where the Elephants Bleed
My thesis project takes form as an obituary to the American Circus, responding to the death of a longstanding tradition in the United States. It responds to societal changes, as our country abandons past practices on both a large and small scale. The work details the decline of the circus as a microcosm for other shifts across the nation today. My writing examines how once everyday occurrences now exist only as relics in museums, and how a national response to the way we view entertainment has changed organized performance. The shift in the way we view both people and animals—elephants in particular—prompted both the beginning of the circus in the 1800s and the end of the circus in the 2000s, bookending a now closed chapter in American history.
A Brief History of Supermarkets
This installment, along with others, focuses heavily on the mundane. It is these types of moments, saccharine in nature, which we look back on from adulthood and re-examine, whether it is briefly in memory or pulled through a fine-tooth comb. Individual poems, such as those in the sample below, have also served as the foundation for a new collection of lyric essays.
The Wilds
This book length poetry collection builds upon previous chapbooks and looks to explore the genre blend of creative nonfiction and poetry with a focus on landscape and the weirdness behind the American terrain. Touching upon strange traditions with reoccurring themes of animals, motel travel and more, the collection aims to analyze incidents rendered distinctly American, such as the Muskingum Animal Farm incident.
