No Money in It

This project consists of nineteen poems produced during my undergraduate career at the University of New Orleans. Issues concerning the female body; science (particularly astronomy and evolutionary theory); and theories about the creative process, capitalism, and relationships characterize the themes of this manuscript. Some poems are clearly part of the same narrative, while others are composed in various modes: epistle, address, self-definition, elegy, and lyric. This thesis includes prose and emblematic forms; there are poems styled after other poets and one composed entirely of “found” sentences. The poems consider what it means to be a young poet in 2017—a time when the artist must constantly argue for the importance of art and herself in an increasingly tense political and socioeconomic environment. I plan to submit these poems to literary journals