Individual Presentation or Panel Title
Wirewalker: Poems
Abstract
In 1902 and 1903, Miss Addie Nelson performed with the Ringling Brothers’ Circus as a tightrope walker. Outside of those years, it is as if she never existed. Wirewalker uses verse to construct an imagined life for this circus performer that history forgot. Written as an English honors thesis, the project explores the early 20th century circus by focusing on Addie’s imagined experience: performing, traveling, living on a train, breaking into an established community, and more. Wirewalker also explores more universal themes, such as sexuality, growing up, and the complicated relationships that people form with their peers and their parents. The project highlights the challenges and rewards of writing distinct poems that are connected by narrative. It also examines ideas of structure through the ordering of individual poems and the layered interaction of metaphor and more literal language. Wirewalker has been an exercise in the careful blending of historical details and imagined circumstances that is a necessary skill when writing creative work with a historical background.
Location
Goodwin Private Dining Room
Start Date
3-5-2014 3:30 PM
End Date
3-5-2014 4:20 PM
Wirewalker: Poems
Goodwin Private Dining Room
In 1902 and 1903, Miss Addie Nelson performed with the Ringling Brothers’ Circus as a tightrope walker. Outside of those years, it is as if she never existed. Wirewalker uses verse to construct an imagined life for this circus performer that history forgot. Written as an English honors thesis, the project explores the early 20th century circus by focusing on Addie’s imagined experience: performing, traveling, living on a train, breaking into an established community, and more. Wirewalker also explores more universal themes, such as sexuality, growing up, and the complicated relationships that people form with their peers and their parents. The project highlights the challenges and rewards of writing distinct poems that are connected by narrative. It also examines ideas of structure through the ordering of individual poems and the layered interaction of metaphor and more literal language. Wirewalker has been an exercise in the careful blending of historical details and imagined circumstances that is a necessary skill when writing creative work with a historical background.