Double Visions & Desire In Diaspora Poetry

Abstract

What is at stake for the diaspora poet seeking to write about their homeland? This thesis undertakes a close reading of poems by K-Ming Chang and Aria Aber and posits the speakers of diaspora poems as Orpheus figures, bards who are condemned to risk looking loss in the face when they turn around to confront the beloveds that haunt them. Anne Carson's theory on the triangulation of desire offers an additional useful framework to think about diasporic distance as what "conjoins" the speaker and their place of origin.