Vistor Parking Only

VISITOR PARKING ONLY is a thesis comprised of 40 poems and a fifteen-page introduction that travels simultaneously through the climatic seasons and familial generations, creating a cyclical effect of inevitable loss and regrowth. The poems start in late spring, early summer and dive into adolescent wonder, vulnerable, and loss of innocence. Gradually as the seasons change so does the speaker, diving into young adulthood and parenting and the sense of responsibility, guilt, and confusion that has played such a large role in developing me as a person. The poems transition into the winter months where older generations, such as my parents and grandparents, allow for opportunities to reflect on their influence on me, and how I carry a little of them with me everywhere I go. There is a gradually transition into early spring and renewal of generations as I pass down who I am and what I know to my son. The introduction dives deeper into my own persona history as a young parent and how that has informed some of these poems around ideas of guilt, responsibility, loss, as well as hope. Advisor: Grace Baue