Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Michael Leong
Abstract
Through both poetry and collage this thesis complicates the ways in which the body is framed alongside gender. Working in conversation with transpoetics, ecopoetics and collage theory I piece together the body through hybridity: both through content within the poems and collages as well as formally in how collage and poems occupy the pages of this thesis together. Particularly through the combination of transpoetics and collage, I make an argument about the anti-narrativity of living in a body, and the collectivity of the body itself—the (trans) body is not singular, or whole, but rather is made up of fragments pasted together given meaning through their proximity together. Even its passage through time is non-linear, and the middle can stretch or double back without making a clear trajectory from beginning to end. Through the process of poiesis that has guided the formation of this manuscript, I bring together fragments that take the form of poems (sometimes clearly following formal parameters, sometimes making their own parameters) and collage (cutting and pasting images and textures; times and worlds) and bring them into new contexts.
Recommended Citation
Schwartz, Celia, "under the underbelly" (2026). Honors Theses. 1007.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/honorstheses/1007
Rights Statement
All rights reserved. This copy is provided to the Kenyon Community solely for individual academic use. For any other use, please contact the copyright holder for permission.