Terms of Flight

Abstract

<italic>Terms of Flight</italic> is Alex Bleecker's creative thesis for graduation from the University of Washington's M.F.A. program in Poetry. It is a coming-of-age pseudo-story related through flashes of memory that investigates closeness and distance, intimacy and loss, ecstasy and trauma. Through stripped-bare images, sonic associations, and moments of confession, it tracks a trajectory that begins in childhood, traverses romantic landscapes, and ends in solitude. The collection oscillates between whole poems and fragmented sections, with the two modes working together to relate the paradoxical discreteness and interconnectedness of lived experiences.