Date of Award

Spring 2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

English

First Advisor

Michael Leong

Second Advisor

Orchid Tierney

Abstract

CONTRAFUEGOS is a full-length book of poetry that explores the use of two images—that of wildfires I experienced living in Quito in 2013, and of the firebreak, or “contrafuegos”—in order to explore memory, loss, family, nationalism, and language. The book begins with my six-month stay living in Ecuador with my uncle and his family at age eleven, and my attempts at assimilation while witnessing fires that enveloped the valley around the city. The second part moves forward about ten years in time, to evolving relationships within my nuclear family throughout my undergraduate years. The third section is a retrospective address to specific people, as well as a deeper dive into my mother’s experiences as a young immigrant to the United States in the seventies. Lastly, the fourth part is a more expansive mediation on the intricacies of living between nationalities and cultures, translation play, and broader hallmarks of cultural Ecuadorianness. While each section is representative of a discrete period of my life, the project remains consistent in its overarching imagery of the “contrafuegos” as a metaphor for boundaries, barriers, and family structure, and through its focus on the dually destructive and life-giving property of fire and burn.

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.

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