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George Mason University

Thrum: Poems

Abstract

In this book-length collection of poetry divided into three sections, I use a variety of forms to explore the anxieties of memory. Throughout the manuscript, the poems wrestle with the complications of inheritance and artifacts—those things that get left behind and held on to, both physical and intangible. In the first section, the poems are grounded in place and excavation practices, utilizing source material from the Historic St. Mary’s City website to add texture to the speaker’s ruminations on a failed relationship. The middle section of the manuscript serves as a bridge between the first and third sections, chronicling the problems of the physical act of making memories, refracting and returning to the same memory again and again and chronicling the shifts in memories as they age. In the final section of the manuscript, the poems turn toward family history, examining the speaker’s relationship to expired relatives and to the expectations they may have left lingering in her life.

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author
  • Johnson, Michele K

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
hdl:1920/9004
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:MARS:1920/9004

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
George Mason University
Base URL
mars.gmu.edu/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-27
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Johnson, Michele K. Thrum: Poems. 2014.