Simple Fires

Abstract

"Suspended in Mid-Air while Looking under the Bed" begins and loosely foreshadows this collection of poetry and short stories. I am a storyteller, pulled by both family and place in my life. In this thesis, I play impresario and follow each short story with poems which resonate with that story. The first poems and short stories speak from places in my life: Ireland, Prague, and Malawi. Then my storytelling comes closer to family with a fictional account of my great-grandparents Wilhelm and Ana Krane, who immigrated to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in the 1880's. My story of family continues through relationships, reunions, my parents, and ends with the contemporary world when my translation of Charles Baudelaire merges into a poem about Iraq.