Building a Reservoir

Building a Reservoir is a collection of poems and stories that meditate on the ways we congregate around, connect with, rely upon, enjoy, misunderstand, misuse, and mythicize water. Throughout the collection, water allows for reflection, scrutinization, and meaning-making and acts as a mirror, magnifier, and mystifier. At its core, Building a Reservoir is about bodies, as we are almost always talking about bodies when we talk about water. The project utilizes images of and interactions with the ocean, lakes, pools, fish tanks, and other bodies of water to enter into conversations about religion, sexuality, race, gender roles and expectations, trauma, resources, consent, and commodification.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Creative Writing

Department dc:contributor.department

English

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Gaynor, Grace Anita

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Patel, Soham Suresh

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Queen, Khadijah
• Terazawa, Sophia Emi

• water
• want
• woman
• girl
• desire
• sin
• skin
• scales
• body
• sink
• swimming
• drowning
• church
• legs
• swimsuit
• prayer
• flood
• blood

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:43590

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/133158