How I Met My Rapist Master's Thesis by Barbara Allyn Bemkopf A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah April, 15, 2016 Approved Dr. Janin Dr. Sian driffi Dr. Michael Wutz How I Met My Rapist: Master's Thesis By Barbara Allyn Bernkopf Night Terror My room beat black alive in a silhouetted shimmer. Blankets squeezed my face, a single pupil locked on the open door while night hissed through the open window. 1 asked Mom to leave the hallway light on, but she said, "No, Honey," and her finger flicked the safety off, leaving the door cracked for fresh air flow. Fresh air strips shadows trip like poorly practiced tap, mini muscles strain, teeth grind and clench, pupils dilate wide as mother's mouth and fix on the golden knob. Did it turn ? Don't blink It turned. Finger shadows, body shadows, mother's mouth shadows, lips move— Nothing will hurtyou. You 're safe at home. My eyes peel my room, then seal tight. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It snot real. Golden knob spins shh shh, they shuffle Mommy? No answer. Feet like beetles sneak shadows can breathe, then lurches, grabbing or blade, Your mommy a pitched-faced slips— through heavy air. Mommy, stop. No answer, closer, silence so thick. Mom, stop. It stops my thin neck with fat fingers is dead, he hisses and I wake up screaming. A Week Before My 21'' Birthday 1. It starts with tequila Jose Cuervo Classy shit We are feeling rich tonight The liquid shivers down to my empty gut Vodka next—Kamchatca (we splurged on tequila) followed by bottom shelf gin whiskey SoCo and PBR Vibrate warmth Guzzle more booze Roll out two-buck shot glasses from Hastings down the way Lips begin to slur People show up I know you you you and you I don't know you but any friend of his is a friend of mine II. I roll awake, missing time. Dust quiets a clock's hands while I trail my own down bruised flesh, pressing one finger inside my vagina. I am lace caught on split nails. Inside the emergency room my face is a mime of mascara. I watch the black tears drop, rippling lined paper like a polygraph and Detective Scott won't stop his quiz. I lunge for the metal waste bin. My stomach swells up a fresh river of booze. It lands, an echo of rain on concrete. When I Was a Person I sat on peeling pews Inside God's house every Sunday. My mother's fingers wouldn't keep out of my curls, rearranging a pink bow the size of a hibiscus atop my head before kissing my temple and reminding me, "You're my girl." My father knelt beside, fingers pressed like a steeple and I'd pretzel them so he would pray right For communion we were sent to Father Ken. "We must practice confessing," he told us, so 1 confessed to pouring salt on a slug and to watching it pop and sizzle and to calling my brother a "stupid idiot" after he decapitated my newest Barbie and buried her in the sand (he left her legs wide and open like that]. I don't remember Father ordering me to say twenty Hail Mary's or twenty Our Father's, but I remember my cheeks flushed because Father forced out my flaws, while my brother stayed safe in the pew. I watched his eyes trail my feet, his fingers tightly knitted, and I saw his shoulders quiver as his lips dripped laughter. Suicide Attempt I'll admit piercing a bloodstream might be like drinking too much coffee. Watch the red lick down a clean drain or porcelain bowl and analyze how my fingers shiver off my identity as adrenaline or caffeine rushes arteries. Fight or flight, I remember from Psychology 1010, as 1 watch my self-worth spill down like Hemingway's rain. My girl friend killed herself three weeks ago gagging pill after pill until her face sagged and her mouth tweaked in that perma-tooth smile. She asked, once, if 1 would take her pistol or hide her blades after she confessed, rape, and I sat silent, running fingers through greasy hair. Memory They skipped over to the swing I dangled from. "Come play," they sang, so I slid from plastic and metal, bow bouncing with my curls, to catch up. I didn't see any other girls, but I followed anyway so they would like me. 1 sat criss-cross in a cement pipe with four boys playing "What kind of under wear are you wearing?" my white blouse and black skirt matched their skins. "Ok," one boy, Billy, I think was his name, said, "you go first." 1 said, "No, you first," and he showed us all his Spider- Man briefs, webs covering his pecker. He nodded to me and I lifted my skirt, knees wide, and Billy flashed his fingers forward, grabbing my tiny pussy. I tumbled out of the oval mouth, ran to the Recess Monitor, told her what happened and she said, "Well why are you showing boys your underwear, Allyn?" I looked back at the pipe, face flushed, to see Billy and his boys hiding side smiles with honeyed fingers. 10 Interrogation What happened last night? a. Oh, Honey. Why are you laughing? a. You were so lit / Booze ripped down your swollen cheeks You think that's funny? a. Honey Tell me what happened last night. a. Your legs opened up / Easy as splitting locust You didn't stop it? a. Honey. No. Why didn't you stop it? a. You wanted it / Want it Why didn't you stop it? a. You didn't deserve it / Deserve it Fuck you both. a. Honey. 11 Interrogation Hello? a. 1 think 1 was raped last night. Did you cheat on me? a. Honey. No. Did you cheat on me? a. No. What happened? a. 1 think I'm going to be sick. Where are you? a. Perched inside rotting lips. Who did it? Did you try and stop it? Do you know him? a. Like an oil stain on asphalt? Do you want me to come up there? a. Be realistic. 12 Interrogation Where were you? a. Folded between slick cock and cushion. No. Where were you? a. Sitting on a snake's tongue. Look. My thighs drip venom. What were you doing? a. Spitting What did he look like? a. Grease. Any other dominant features? a. Forked. Like honeyed pillows. Can you explain? a. Do you have a feather? What? a. A feather. Here's a feather. a. See how the vane has barbs? See how they melt? Peel them down. See how they fork? Rip them away. Repeat until you are left with this. What is this? a. A hallow shaft. Are you sure? a. No. Do you know the perpetrator? a. No. Did you defend yourself? a. No. Why wouldn't you? a. Booze is burning. I'm going to be sick. Tell us exactly what happened. In your own words, a. Can we take a break? Ok. Are you ready? a. No. Ok. Tell us what happened in your own words. 13 Emigration Canyon I. Sometimes I forget that I don't believe in God. Evan asked if I'd like to see Ted Bundy's house and I nodded as we drove up Emigration Canyon just past Hogle Zoo and apartments that tilted like Bundy's last breath. We made our way up, curved, turned, "Stop!" he said and I swerved to a clearing off the road. We walked toward the trees, laughed off the "Warning" sign and came upon a peeling gate overgrown with re-vegetation projects from Salt Lake City's NACAA Council. He muttered, "It's anti-climatic," before hopping over. 14 II. Down the graffiti-painted stairs of Bundy's cellar he stood looking up from fallen beams and split pipes. I watched him and the long, brown hair of Nancy, Melissa, and Laura Ann snake down each greasy step, heads bruised, no, bashed by a crowbar nearby. I saw their throats, paper thin, mangled by honeyed fingers, their throbbing thighs glistened and my eyes widened as their skulls bounced like tomatoes on asphalt. "Fuck that. I'm not going down there," 1 said and walked away reminding myself, there is no God... There is no God... There is No God. 15 Serial Archetype Back at Evan's home his fingers slip down my back and ass tracing his tongue up muscle and fat. I close my eyes imagining the double penetration I watched the day before to make me wet. I replay the woman's gurgled sounds behind my eyelids as she swallowed and licked each penis, gagging out, "You want this pussy, don't you?" "Do you believe in heaven and hell?" he asks and I snap up to watch him pull at his dry dick. My ears hiss as he uses his other hand to press each finger slowly inside me. "No," I submit, letting him snake up my skin. 16 Medicate I am labeled victim, carved deep into skin, tears bash hard lines, etching the harsh word from tight teeth. Fuck you, I think, and tip back the gin. Booze spits from my lips, spills down my chin, my hips hum sex, nights bounce and blur, / am not a victim, I hiss, removing my victim skin and snapping his pants down, I lap up his foreskin, then ride him right, until 1 feel power. He finishes, leaves, and I soak in more gin. Days trip as I toast myself and see laughter in sin. / am not the victim, I purr, it is you who is conquered, listing my victims, names flavored with "twist of lime" skin and ginned at my birthday, 1 flash friends and men, then watch myself start a car, body slobbered. I don't remember driving; a DUI virgin. Sitting in jail, tears and booze wrap me in cuffs, my skull meets my fist, until guards interfered to label me criminal, carved deeper in skin, and 1 sit, quiet, lips humming with gin. 17 How I Met My Rapist: Master's Thesis By Barbara Allyn Bernkopf Critical Introdurtinn Introduction On September 17^, 2009,1 was too drunk in my own house with a plethora of people, celebrating the last week before my twenty-first birthday. 1 knew most of the people there, but one of the men that 1 did not know ended up taking advantage of my overly inebriated state, on a couch, on my front porch. I do remember snippets of the incident, but, for most of it, 1 was completely "blacked out." How I Met My Rapist is a progressing manuscript that explores the objectification of rape victims and the objectification that victims place on others, looking into how victims react and heal from sexual assault. I have found, in many cases, that victims take the responsibility of their perpetrator's actions because it is something that they don't understand and are blamed for the assault. This is especially true when the victim is intoxicated. In Ilaria Sarmiento's case study, "Rape Stereotypes and Labeling: Awareness of Victimization and Trauma," she reveals in her research that, "if a rape occurred...a drunken woman is blamed and is attributed more responsibility for the incident than a sober woman. In contrast, the male perpetrator was judged to be less responsible when drunk than when sober" (146). "Victim-blaming" was first introduced to me three years after my actual rape occurred, in a therapy session. My therapist explained that rape victims attempt to understand the trauma and the blame by either withdrawing from their loved ones. 18 friends, and community, or, alternatively, they become the rapist in order to take back what was stolen from them. My choice route had been the latter. I had felt overwhelmingly angry, guilty, afraid, embarrassed, and shameful after I had been assaulted, and because I could not handle the loss of agency that I had experienced, I was determined to never be in that situation again. I had no control over my rapist's actions; he was bigger and stronger than me, I was much drunker than him, so I didn't understand, fully, what was going on, and he had his way with my body. After I decided how I would "heal" from this incident, if I found myself in another situation like my rape, I convinced myself that it was because I wanted to be there, not because I was forced to be there. The use of "I" as Lack of Agencv My use of personal pronouns in this collection is important because the use of *T" is meant to illuminate the responsibility a victim takes for being blamed, alongside exhibiting the lack of personal agency, anger, fear, guilt, embarrassment, and shame that sexual assault victims combat after being objectified. "I" is introduced in the first poem of the collection, "Night Terror," when the speaker, as a child, experiences a real, personal fear of monsters at night. Regardless if it is actually "real," she doesn't act upon her terror because an external force, a supposedly comforting force, her mother, reassures her by saying, "Nothing will hurt you. You're safe at home." (10). My speaker then spends time convincing herself that "It's not real. It's not real," (11) only to experience her fear subconsciously, thus, making it very real; ...It stops 19 then lurches, grabbing my thin neck with fat fingers or blade, Your mommy is dead, he hisses and I wake up screaming (16-19). After I was raped, I went through a period of time where I experienced insatiable fear of being on Utah State University's campus for class or to go to the library, going to work, attending any parties, leaving my house, or even in leaving my bed, because I was afraid that I would see my rapist. The friend who brought my rapist over to my house consistently told me, "It's not what you think, Allyn. You weren't raped. Daniel's not a bad guy," paired with my roommates telling me that "It didn't seem like rape to me," all fed into the fear of seeing my rapist. Everyone told me I wasn't raped, so I was left to question my actions from that night, to blame myself for being "too drunk," and to give my rapist a "pass," furthering my embarrassment and fear of the assault. This echoes "Night Terror" because my speaker is constantly being reassured that there is nothing to be afraid of (I.E. "Allyn, you weren't raped," "It's not what you think"), only to wake up "screaming" because the fear that my speaker experiences is very real and very traumatizing. In "A Week Before My 21^^ Birthday," the use of "I" portrays how, as a victim, my speaker is "watch [ing]" these actions happen to her instead of establishing agency (or lack, therefor) over them: I watch the black tears drop, rippling lined paper like a polygraph (9-11), exploring the confusion that rape victims suffer when assault is acted upon them. In my experience, as previously mentioned, I was blacked-out through my assault, but to help 20 myself overcome my loss of agency and control, I convinced myself that the woman who was raped was me, but not the real "me." The person that was raped was just a body that had been assault, but "I" was safe, which led to me unknowingly objectifying myself. The passiveness of watching is also seen in my poems, "When I Was a Person" ("I watched/ his eyes trail my feet.../ and I saw his shoulders quiver/ as his lips dripped laugher (21-24)), "Memory" ("I looked back at the pipe, face/ flushed, to see Billy and his boys/ hiding side smiles with honeyed fingers" (27-29)), "Emigration Canyon" ("I watched him and the long, brown hair of Nancy, Melissa, and Laura Ann" (3) and "I saw their throats, paper thing, mangled by honeyed/ fingers, their throbbing thighs glistened and my eyes/ widened...(5-7)), and "Medicate" ("then watch myself start a car, body slobbered" (14)), attempting to utilize the words to exhibit a lack of agency over the situations, and to find the embarrassment, confusion, guilt, and shame that a victim experiences. I found the same lack of agency in Cathy Linh Che's, Split In her poem, "In what way does the room map out violence," she writes; His thumb was crooked—double-jointed rather, and it hurt- Minus pleasure, what we experienced was, on one hand, a kind of rape— There is no other hand but the one he used to palm my stomach— Except with him, I wasn't there—I was a border, and he crossed— (30-36), echoing how the speaker watches the perpetrator's actions and can't control the situation, removing herself from the trauma ("I wasn't there—"). Her speaker can only assume a 21 passive, watching role as she is labeled a "border," an object, that the cousin crosses. That passiveness is brought brutally to the front, when Che's speaker says, "Minus pleasure, what we experienced was, on one hand, a kind/ of rape—" (31-32). The action is describes as "a kind/ of rape—" and not "rape," mirroring how I tried to make sense of my situation in grappling with being labeled a "victim," (from "Medicate") and I attempted to give my perpetrator the benefit of the doubt. Saying that 1 was "kind/ of rape[d]" versus "I was raped," takes away the certainness of being powerless as a victim. I would only "kind/ of be a victim, interpreting the phrasing as a psychological defense mechanism against being totally powerless, which is what I did. No one wants to be labeled as a powerless victim. Musicalitv of Language Growing up, I always associated with music. My entire family is musical; my grandmother plays the piano, my mother plays the piano and guitar, my father plays the guitar, my brother plays the guitar, and 1 play the viola, violin, cello, bass (stand-up), guitar, piano, I have dabbled in percussion, and my vocal ability ranges from a tenor to a first soprano. When I began to write poetry, at age twelve, I found that words could create the same pleasing sounds that music does, through traditional rhyme. As I grew, I enjoyed attempting to make my poems replicate the sounds that classical music makes, reverberating from a person's voice or instrument. In How I Met My Rapist, I wanted to mimic the intensity, rush, brutality, and finality that Beethoven demanded in "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor," and the uncomfortable apprehension, catastrophic, and diabolic sensation that Mussorgsky mastered in "Night On 22 Bald Mountain." The collaboration of the string, wind, and percussion instruments in both of these pieces has always rippled my skin with unnerving goose bumps because the composers never release their listeners from the cacophony of notes. Beethoven composed "Symphony No. 5" in the minor key, relieving his audience with a major chord progression throughout, to create a more "relaxed" aura, only to spin back into the intense minor chords for the alarming feeling of utter finality. Mussorgsky had stylistic similarities to Beethoven with the major and minor chord progressions, but demanded extraordinary speed from his symphony, enhancing a cyclone of symphonic fervor that unleashed on his audience. 1 want my readers to react to my poetry in the same way that 1 do whenever 1 listen to these classical masters, attempting this fervor in "Night Terror" and the "Interrogation" poems. These poems span multiple pages in hopes of keeping my readers uncomfortably forced to continue reading and I've made word choices meant to create the uncomfortable apprehension and intensity that Beethoven and Mussorgsky exhibit in their music. For example, in "Night Terror," 1 write, "My room beat black alive in a silhouetted shimmer," (1) "Fresh air strips shadows trip like poorly practiced tap," (6) "It's not real It's not real It's not real/ It's not real," (11-12) and "Feet like beetles sneak closer, silence so thick,/ shadows can breathe," (15-16) and in the "Interrogation" poems, 1 write, "Why are you laughing?/ a. You were so lit / Booze ripped down your swollen cheeks," (3- 4) "Where are you?/ a. Perched inside rotting lips," (9-10) "Where were you?/ a. Folded between slick cock and cushion./ No. Where were you? a. Sitting on a snake's tongue. Look. My thighs drip venom," (1-4) and Are you sure? 23 a. No. Do you know the perpetrator? a. No. Did you defend yourself? a. No. Why wouldn't you? a. Booze is burning. I'm going to be sick. Tell us exactly what happened. In your own words, a. Can we take a break? Ok Are you ready? a. No. Ok. Tell us what happened in your own words, (25-38) hoping to exhibit that same unwanted feeling of having to continue, to push through the words, until the destructive end. This intrigue of musicality in words was further cultivated and honed in my undergraduate degree, when I studied under Shanan Ballam. Throughout the undergraduate English courses, 1 learned about assonance, alliteration, meters, stressed and unstressed syllables, slant rhymes, end rhymes, etcetera, all of which create a sense of "flow" and "musicality" in poetry. Ballam masters the use of these techniques in her collection. Pretty Marrow, which she tunes in her very first poem, "Shocked;" Think of the tick tick tick of wires against an unsuspecting pine over and over 24 until the buzz of electricity nuzzles through. Think of the blazing white lick of stripped wire on stripped wire: sparks, white slashes, misfires (1-7). The iambic and spondaic stressors placed on "the TICK TICK TICK" set the poem at an accelerated pace, only to be slowed down by the trochaic and spondaic stressors placed on "BLAzing WHITE LICK." To emphasize the meters, Ballam also hones into slant rhymes in this beginning stanza with "tick," "lick," and "stripped," and "wire" and "misfires," and plays with the alliteration and assonance of her words through the t's, i's, u's, w's, and p's. This type of precision in craft is what I pursued in "Night Terror," ("Fresh air strips shadows trip like poorly practiced tap," (6)) "A Week Before My 21^^ Birthday," ("It starts with tequila/ Jose Cuervo Classy/ shit We are feeling rich/ tonight The liquid shivers/ down to my empty gut," (1-5) and "...my face is a mime of mascara./1 watch the black tears drop,/ ...and Detective Scott won't stop," (28-29, 32)) "When I Was a Person," ("I sat on peeling pews inside God's house/ every Sunday," (1-2)) "Suicide Attempt," ("Watch the red/ run down a clean drain," (2-3)) "Memory," ("I looked back at the pipe, face/ flushed, to see Billy and his boys/ hiding side smiles with honeyed fingers," (27-29)) "Interrogation," ("You were so lit / Booze ripped down your swollen cheeks" (4) and "Folded between slick cock and cushion," (2)) "Emigration Canyon," ("just past Hogle Zoo and apartments that tilted like Bundy's last/ breath. We made our way up, curved, turned, 'Stop!'/ he said and I swerved to a clearing off the road, (4-6)) "Serial Archetype," ("...slip down my back and ass/ tracing his tongue up muscle and fat," (1-2)) and then there is the 25 natural rhyming pattern of "Medicate," because it is a villanelle. The metric stressors, rhymes/slant rhymes, alliteration, and assonance are crafts that I have attempted to tune into through reading Ballam's work because her mastery of the musicality of words makes her work hold that much more power over the reader. I also attempt this musical, masculine power in my own work because it is a form of control that I can exercise over something that is outside of my body and me. Yes, I am coming up with the words and form, but it is something that 1 wield and is not wielded against me; I am, ultimately, in control. As a sexual assault victim, having control ripped unwillingly away creates a void, which is also why 1 chose the role as the "rapist" when I was attempting to heal from my assault. 1 am still exploring my obsession with the masculine choices that 1 make, but I am starting to understand that it is my way to overcome my objectification. If 1 can become the more masculine, dominating role, then my rapist no longer has "power" over me. Brutalitv of Language Brutality in the word choices I make in How I Met My Rapist is important because sexual assault isn't something that you feel akin to after it happens. It is brutal. The emotions and (what felt like) psychotic tendencies that I went through after my assault always reverberated a type of brutal-esque-ness. My obsession with brutality, paired with the more masculine word choices and the catastrophes that 1 attempted to pull from the classical music, was my way of exploring how to pull my reader into my personal cyclone, so they could also feel the damning word of "rape." 26 The year after I was raped, I was in a poetry class where we studied William Trowbridge's Ship of Fool, and 1 was instantly enamored by his diction. His honed mastery of word choice, speaker voice, and developed story line of his character, "Fool," was some of the most brutal and beautiful poetry 1 had ever read. 1 loved it. The first poem 1 read from this collection, "Psycholinguists," reformed how 1 thought about poetry. The poem reads; Trying to fix a flat in the bad end of the barrio. Fool fumbles the jack, which lands on his big toe, cranking up an air-raid siren of pain. "FUCK," he blurts, surprised by his profanity. What on earth has happened to his angelic vocabulary? "SHIT," he adds, and the howl relents a little. "Cocksucker," he continues, "motherfucker," at which the gremlins of malaise draw back, bolstering their caltrops and roofing nails. "Why don't you goddamned smegma-breathed, baboon-butt- faced little fuck fuckers blow it straight outta your blinky little assholes!" he asks, which unfolds a conga line of endorphins slow-kicking across the reflective floors of his cerebrum, thawing his grimace into a have-a-nice-day smile. He feels like Ponce De Leon might have 27 if he'd discovered the Fountain of Youth instead of an arrow sandwich. "Derringer up my sleeve," he concludes, "balm for the thousand cuts." He feels rain. "Fuckheads! Pussy faces! Bite my dick!" he hollers at the drops, slowing a low-rider loaded with shark eyes, (19) showing me that poetry did not have to be based off of Shakespeare's (in my opinion) prosaic sonnets, Blake's masterful rhyme schemes, Dickinson and Plath's heartache, or Owen's bombastic anthems, albeit all of these poets were ones that 1 studied and loved (spare Shakespeare—1 could never truly appreciate his words because I found them superfluous). Trowbridge was able to show me that my words and my voice did not have to be neat and pretty. 1 could be harsh, messy, nasty, and brutal; through craft, I could encompass a sexual assault into poetry and make my reader feel rape and objectification, as Trowbridge made me feel Fool stub his toe. "Psycholinguists" shows the reader that Fool is usually a nice guy ("...surprised/ by his profanity. What on earth has happened/ to his angelic vocabulary?" (4-6)), only to spur complexity, tension, and intensity in the character when he stubs his toe and lets the "fucks" roll off his tongue. How I Met My Rapist explores Trowbridge's contemporary technique, and although his diction is far beyond my comprehensible writing ability at this time, the brutal imagery and word choices are what I attempt to pull into my work. Trowbridge's poem, "Fool's Paradise," is one more example of his visceral imagery; After all, feeling your eyeballs boil inside keeps your mind off your smoldering testicles. 28 And there's practically no dress code, other than that coat of film you get from the burning bodily discharges (4-8,16). The result in reading what Trowbridge's speaker is feeling ("...your eyeballs boil inside/ keeps your mind off your smoldering testicles") is near-catastrophic. He paints such a visceral and unruly image, that it resonates. Trowbridge made me feel the "eyeballs boil," the testicles smolder, and 1 could almost peel away "that coat of film you get from the burning" from my own skin. 1 explored this recreation of brutality in "When 1 Was a Person," ("...so 1 confessed to pouring salt/ on a slug and to watching it pop and sizzle," (10-11)), in "Suicide Attempt," ("My girl friend killed herself three weeks ago/ gagging pill after pill until her face/ sagged and her mouth tweaked in that perma-tooth/ smile, "(9-12)), "Emigration Canyon II," ("1 watched him and the long, brown hair of Nancy, Melissa, and Laura Ann/ snake down each greasy step, heads bruised, no, bashed by a crowbar/ nearby," (3-5) and "...my eyes/ widened as their skulls bounced like tomatoes on asphalt," (6-7)) and "Medicate," ("1 am labeled victim, carved deep into skin," (1)) in hopes that my reader would be forced to step into my speakers trauma, feeling their own face sag or having "victim" impressed upon their own skin. Influential and Inspirational Form In beginning this collection, I had difficulty with form because I'd only ever written one way: down. After multiple failed poems, my graduate mentor. Dr. Janine Joseph, 29 suggested that I read Frances Justine Post's collection. Beast, and 1 was fascinated with her poem, "The Minors," for its specific unrhymed free-versed, free-spaced quatrains, tercets, cinquains, and couplets, spanning over the course of nine pages. Post writes; Our field the color of kiwi I stay down under the reeling stalks the dirt rich with manure smelling like blood minerals in front of my nose a piece of broken corncob stripped like half a jaw with teeth intact, (1-4) with allows the reader to go through this poem horizontally and vertically. I attempted this craft in "Night Terror," writing; My room beat black alive in a silhouetted shimmer. Blankets squeezed in on my face a single pupil locked on the open door while night hissed through the open window. I asked Mom to leave the hallway light on, but she said, 'No, Honey,' and her finger flicked the safety off, leaving the door cracked for fresh air flow (1-5). Though 1 do not experiment with the exact approach that she took with forming this poem, I attempted to copy her style of spacing, utilizing that "breath" of space for anticipation and urgency. "When I Was a Person" was inspired by Natalie Diaz' "When My Brother Was an Aztec," using the same progressing hanging-indent tercet. Her use of the form creates a sense of anadiplosis, where the speaker's brother continues to grow in strength and chaos throughout the poem, adding to the devastation that Diaz' speaker feels while watching her parents go through this trauma. The very first stanza illuminates this movement; he lived in our basement and sacrificed my parents 30 every morning. It was awful. Unforgivable. But they kept coming back for more. They loved him, was all they could say, (1-3) which sets up the poem's direction. The reader understands from the very beginning that the brother is going to put the parents through "unforgivable" situations. In my own poem, 1 also try to set up where the poem is going; 1 sat on peeling pews inside God's house every Sunday. My mother's fingers wouldn't keep out of my curls, rearranging a pink bow the size of a hibiscus atop my head before kissing my temple and reminding me, "You're my girl" (1-5). The topics of the poems are, obviously, very different, but 1 attempted to create the same anadiplotical movement toward feeling objectified, though not in the same devastating direction that Diaz' poem heads. Marie Ponsot's, "Winter," was influential in crafting the sonnet form with a successful volta. She utilizes a Shakespearean sonnet form, whereas, 1 wrote "Suicide Attempt" in the Petrarchan Sonnet form, but Ponsot's voltas are clear; You shift snow fast, back bent, but your boy killed himself, six days dead. My boy washed your wall when the police were done. He says, "We weren't friends?" and shakes his head, "1 told him it was great he had that gun," and shakes. 1 shake, close to you, close to you. 31 You have a path to clear, and so you do (8-14). Her first volta appears in lines nine and ten, when the speaker makes it apparent that she still has her son and the neighbor does not, then again at the end, when the speaker wants to speak with the neighbor, but can't. I utilized Ponsot's poem to try and create the same successful volta in my own sonnet. I write; Fight or flight, 1 remember from Psychology 1010, as 1 watch my self-worth spill down like Hemingway's rain. My girl friend killed herself three weeks ago gagging pill after pill until her face sagged and her mouth tweaked in that perma-tooth smile. She asked, once, if I would take her pistol or hide her blades after she confessed, rape, and I sat silent, running fingers through greasy hair, (6-14) in hopes that my readers would be able to see the progression from the first eight lines of imagined self-harm and mental helplessness to the last six lines of an actual suicide and my speaker being reduced to physical helplessness and silence W. S. Merwin was inspiration for my poem, "Interrogation." His poem, "Some Last Questions," uses the same question/answer format and helped me my form, metaphors, and syntax to keep my poem's poignancy. Merwin's poem successfully creates metaphors by using the least amount of words possible, allowing his readers to grasp and associate the poem with death; 32 What is the head A. Ash (1-2) What are the feet A. Thumbs left after the auction (6-7) What is the tongue A. The black coat that fell of the wall With sleeves trying to say something (12-14) Who are the compatriots A. They make the stars of bone (23-24). In its paraphrased form, the poem doesn't present its full and haunting disarray, but still gives the reader a sense of finality in what 1 imagine Merwin is seeking with his poem. Death is the ultimate finality for a human. I attempted a similar movement, but with rape, not death, trying to put my reader in the position where the poem is repeatedly saying "No," but the interrogation continues, echoing the repeated "No" that a rape victim generally says during the attack. Over-Arching Themes In her Tin House podcast, "How To Write A Kick-Ass Essay," Ann Hood advises to "write the hardest sentence" in order to write a successful essay. Even though Hood is a prose writer and her meaning behind saying this is for a prose writer to understand that they must earn the essay enough to be able to say that sentence, 1 find that this comment to be true to any form of writing. In poetry, there is such a condensed amount of space to 33 bring the image, the situation, and the conflict to the reader, that the hardest sentence must turn into the most visceral, uncomfortable image. Che was one of my biggest influences in this project via the over-arching theme of objectification because she absolutely earns her words. She expertly crafts this in Split, and even though Che's collection is different from my own, that confusion resonates with the speaker in my own poems; a confusion of objectification through lack of agency, embarrassment, guilt, anger, and shame. Che writes in her poem, "In what way does the room map out violence," "She began as an object—/ A pattern," (115-116) continuously subjecting her speaker to the cousin's sexual wants and desires. Che moves to the image of "a body in surrender" (7)) in "Bloodlines," and the images of being "unwilling" (17) in "In every psyche, tiny or dramatic perforations," constantly having the actions forced upon the speaker. Che inspired a similar movement in my collection with the over-arching theme of watching actions happen around my speaker, and constantly being objectified and objectifying others. Che succeeds and earns the hardest words, as do all of these authors that I have studied. My attempt to say and earn the hardest words through exploitation of objectification, shame, guilt, embarrassment, anger, and lack of agency from a personal experience with rape in writing has enhanced my understanding and craft of poetry. Trowbridge, Ballam, Diaz, Ponsot, Merwin, Post, and Che have all influenced my poetic voice, and although I am still honing my expertise, this project has illuminated the opportunities that I can and will achieve in my love for the artistic craft of words. 34 Works Cited Ballam, Shanan. Pretty Marrow. Mobile: Negative Capability Press, 2013. Print. Che, Cathy Linh. Split. Farmington: Alice James Books, 2014. Print. Diaz, Natalie. When My Brother Was an Aztec. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 2012. Print Merwin, W. S. "Some Last Questions." Poetry Foundation. 1993. Web. 7 April 2016. Ponsot, Marie. "Winter." Poetry Foundation. 1998. Web. 7 April 2016. Post, Frances Justine. Beast. New York: Augury Books, 2014. Print. Sarmiento, llaria. "Rape Stereotypes and Labeling: Awareness of Victimization and Trauma." Psychological Reports 1.108 [2011): 141-148. EBSCOhost. Web. 19 April 2016. Trowbridge, William. Ship of Fool. Pasadena: Red Hen Press, 2011. Print