History Repeats Itself In Paradise

Abstract

This thesis combines two poetic manuscripts into one coherent and readable volume. It builds on the freewheeling, hallucinatory flow of the poets whose worked served as primary influences during its composition, chief among them Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman and Arthur Rimbaud. This work breaks new ground in the exploration of the effects of world travel upon the consciousness of the author. Instead of descriptions of the places and people encountered while journeying about the world the work explores the unique mental and emotional arenas inhabited as consequence of travel's influence upon the individual. The work is infused with both narrative and lyrical verse, a format well suited to getting the volatile nature of world travel onto the page. Each of the pieces are titled with the names of the cities in which they were initially composed, except for the final poem, a 6300-word epic concerning journeys both in South America and Asia.