Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

English

Advisor/Mentor

Howell, Rebecca

Committee Member

Davis, Geffrey

Second Committee Member

Larson, Jane

Keywords

Ecofeminism; Eden; Eve; Feminism; Migraine; Spirituality

Abstract

I grew up in the South, in the Bible Belt. I've been taught the stories of the Bible my entire life. The stories we tell ourselves and those around us shape our reality—how we see ourselves, how we treat others, how we move through the world. During the last several years, a time rife with harm on a personal, national, and global scale, I started to ask myself: what stories and storytellers are responsible?   There were too many to count. Instead of letting the noise take me under, I focused on one of the oldest stories around: the story of Adam and Eve.   The poems in this collection follow Eve from a new vantage point. They were driven by questions like, “How did Adam and Eve stay together after their betrayal? How did Eve survive after the murder of her youngest son and abandonment by her oldest? Did she have daughters? How did those women survive in a culture hell-bent on subduing them?” I’ve placed her in the modern-day Ozarks and given her a different curse in lieu of the one assigned to her; these specifics cause her story to overlap with mine in ways they hadn’t before.   Is the story of Original Sin and the Garden of Eden to blame for the upheaval we’re experiencing today? It’s hard to say with certainty (but I would argue that it bears a very large portion of it). Will the stories held within these pages move anyone towards peace? Who knows. I believe any attempt at unraveling a tangled knot is worth a shot.

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