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Virginia Tech

Orifice of Return

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Orifice of Return is a collection of poetry that posits Black femme bodies as living and breathing archives, corporeal manifestations of intuitive and intellectual claims at survival. The poems in this collection illustrate the multifaceted nature of my craft, through which the personal, the collective, and the political are commingled, but wrestling forces. As Audre Lorde declares, there are many kinds of open, the poems of this collection are orifices, textual portals, spatial and temporal fissures, and entryways into Black past, present, and future. These poems use received forms (the ghazal, the ode, the cento, the obverse, litany, etc.) and employ stylistic devices like (direct address, song lyrics, colloquial speech and slang, etc.) These poems interrogate histories and imagine speculative futures for Black folks. They exist in lineage— familial, imagined, literary ancestral, and with the theoretical underpinnings of Black feminist hauntology and Toni Morrison's "rememory." Some of these poems are lyrically driven, while others are performance and rhythmically driven— all facing inwards and outwards, aware of the world they exist in.

Degree

thesis:*
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
2022

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Ankong, Honora Awamie
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Smith, Carmen Gimenez
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Meitner, Erika S.
  • Roy, Lucinda H.

Subjects

dc:subject × 20

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:34774
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110794

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Ankong, Honora Awamie. Orifice of Return. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/110794