Date of Award
Winter 12-19-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Annarose Steinke
Committee Members
Janet Graham, Kriston Fritson, Rain Wright
Keywords
Trauma, Psychology, PTSD, EMDR, Slam Poetry, Andrea Gibson, Domestic Violence, Poetry, Queer, LGBTQ, Polyamory, Art Therapy, Writing Therapy, Healing Through Writing
Abstract/Description
Hinge is a poetry collection accompanied by an extended, hybridized introduction that interweaves an analysis of the author’s poetic influences, personal experiences as a domestic violence survivor, and poetic practice. The work simultaneously explores how writing and embodying poetry through public performance can facilitate the reunification of memory and emotion for survivors of DV living with dissociative disorder and C-PTSD. Hinge is a creative exploration of self and identity in the aftermath of trauma. Across both the introduction and the poems, a sense of persistent technicolor optimism endures in the face of physical and psychological abuse, as well as the lingering aftermath of familial and romantic loss. The introduction further examines the intersections between therapeutic repair and artistic mending—where experimental practices of rebellion and poetry meet and meld into a shared site of restoration. The necessary function of the voices of poets and authors–Mary Oliver, Octavia Butler, Andrea Gibson, James Crews, Alok Vaid-Menon, and Ross Gay–in building a language to communicate trauma in a way that permits healing is explored. Through the language of queer experience, both the introduction and the poems explore the tension of finding belonging through the rejection of complacency with societal expectations and the refusal to abandon selfhood and goodness.
Recommended Citation
Glass, Stephanie E., "HINGE: A POETRY COLLECTION" (2025). English Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity. 27.
https://openspaces.unk.edu/eng-etd/27
Included in
Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Nonfiction Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Performance Studies Commons, Poetry Commons, Psychology Commons, Queer Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons