Date of Award

Summer 8-15-2023

Document Type

Thesis (Master's)

Department or Program

Master of Arts in Liberal Studies

First Advisor

Rena Mosteirin

Second Advisor

Anna Minardi

Third Advisor

Harriette Yahr

Abstract

Abstract Sport has an intrinsic function to embrace the differences of all human beings that uncovers the similarity that we all truly share. This thesis project addresses the ways in which sport goes beyond fields of play, courts of performance, and lanes of winning and losing to inform connections that build upon the structures of meaningful life. This collection engages a unique poetic framework through the idea of choice. A poet makes countless decisions as he writes, just as the athlete makes intentional and spontaneous decisions as he competes. Each situation presents its own level of autonomy that has been balanced to create a structure of poems held within the regulations of sport. In many ways sport is poetic; a relationship that dates back to the ancient Greeks and the early days of the Olympics. Sport is poetry in motion and this collection makes visible the function of sport in uniting worlds. This collection seeks to create a new poetic form that takes some of the rules of sports as its guiding principles. Each standard of logic and language based on the foundation of sport showcasing the complexities of human emotion through competition in ways that adhere to both the mental and physical, and the internal and external. In form, in display, in pattern, and in rhythm this thesis illustrates the relationship between sport, people, and emotion all in the same right. Sport and poetry belong together — they share a deepened sense of creation and craftsmanship. There is a natural affinity between sport and poetry. Each is a form of play and each is cathartic. They both hold the power to take us out of our beings and lift us above ourselves. Poetry brings one into the arena while retaining the magic and mystery of sport.

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