Abstract
Object Work is a collection of lineated and prose poems examining grief after the death of my mom. Through poems that use nonfictional documentation, persona, narrative, and abstraction, this collection asks: how does one give shape to loss or understand it in the ways one understands the material world? Themes of doubling emerge through mirrors and fictionalizations, attempts to create tangible stand-ins for the self. Here, the speaker nestles alongside the other objects that reappear through the collection, utilizing repetition of image to parallel the obsessive and cyclical nature of grief. To this end, Object Work engages with the tradition of prose poetry; a form that, per poet Michel Deville, is often marked by “the recurrence of a dominant thought or image… giving a spherical effect” and “frequently gesture[s] toward [its] own artificiality and constructedness.” Throughout the collection, the speaker constructs and reconstructs herself, acknowledging that construction, oscillating between truth and fiction to get closer to emotive truths in the absence of direct, literal answers.