Abstract:
Skeleton Key focuses on the relationship between an individual and family,
culture, heritage, memory, and the physical body. The manuscript utilizes both verse and
prose to explore how a person is defined not by their own thoughts and ideas, but of those
around them – how loved ones and a biracial background define a person who is unable
to define themselves. These poems use recurring characters to define a narrator; how
does being a part of two larger cultural heritages affect a single person? How does that
juxtaposition function not only to society, but also to the physical body itself? What are
the implications of hovering between identities? How do these complications reflect
femaleness? The latter half revolves around the fairytale, both Germanic and Asiatic and
how historically oral traditions and tales have survived and evolved in meaning – how
using this source can result in radically different ideas about race and gender.
