The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Jude Keef will present Master’s research titled, All Exits Missing on 03/02/2026 at 4:50 PM in Lupton 372. Everyone is invited to attend.
English
Chair: Justin Wymer
Co-Chair:
Abstract:
This thesis contains two sections. The first section is a craft essay on ambiguity poetics and how to use different methods of ambiguity to create meaning. The essay focuses on Michael Riffaterre’s Semiotics of Poetry and Susan Howe’s The Nonconformist’s Memorial. The second section is a collection of poems forming a narrative around a pair of grievers and a pair of grieved. Chris, a man who has spent his twenties wandering without purpose around the U.S., rebukes the spirit of a friend who died early and suddenly in his life. Emmett, the spirit, carefully responds to the comments, grabbing onto spare words he can argue against. Francis mourns the life of Jenny, a friend who went missing. Francis begs for Jenny’s safety, while Jenny shares impressions from the one long night that is her life. The collection pins the long and structured words of Chris and Francis against the short poems that make up Emmett and Jenny, moving from discursive poems to sonnets, from a contrapuntal to a burning haibun.