the forest burns bright

Abstract

The investigation I am undertaking is concerned with the demonstration of the effects of the intersections of a person's identity on their personhood and their lives through the avenue of poetry. This is executed through the creation of a book of poems entitled "the forest burns bright", which is divided into three sections which create the metaphor of a forest before, during, and after a fire. The poems themselves are a culmination of my own life experiences as a fat, feminine, gay man from the south that grew up in a working family in a very small town. These experiences are described in a poetic manner that link themselves to the aforementioned forest fire--which ends in the rebirth of the forest (an extended metaphor that describes my trauma and how it has shaped me into who I am today.)