Onion skins : a fall collection

• Main Author: Mullin, Joseph A.
• Other Authors: Koontz, Thomas W.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Poetry.
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/184527; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/845933

The poems in this collection are poems of discovery and explanation. They are the recordings and insights of what it means to be a young male in the North American Midwest in the year 1992. Some are memories of what was or what should have been. Some of the poems are attempts to give meaning to what is, or more importantly, to give meaning to the "who" that is becoming. The majority of the poems deal with opposing tensions, especially between society and the individual, and between knowing and the unknown. In almost all the poems there are two forces pulling at the narrator, and there is an axis between the poles which must remain balanced.The need for balance becomes a central element because of the narrative influence in the poems. They represent a coming of age and contain the myriad viewpoints struggling for recognition at such a time. Some of the poems seem to detail this process; others seem to be results of it. In either case, the poems try to capture the emotive and cognitive quality of a moment.The frequent tension between the conflicting emotive and analytical qualities often results in an ambiguity in the poems. This collection is not so much a finished piece of work as a still continuing process. I hope this questioning attitude is plain in the work and is shared by the reader, for it is a major quality of the poems.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306 === Department of English