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Thesis Themes and Motifs - Coggle Diagram

- - - - "The imaginaries of this northern country" in Routes and the ironic "bloodless dream" in Baby Shoes
      - Questioned in "Single-Use" "Productive Members of Society" "Wild Crows" and "Granted and Gone," where it is suggested that "dreams" given to us such as a house, a nuclear family, etc. have material impact on environment and may not feel spiritually fulfilling
    - - A location of playfulness, at times maximalism, where feelings can be processed and possibilities about the uncertain future can be explored
      - See The Cold Place, Tambourine, Watching Movies, Protecting Dreams
    - - Title poem poses the "dream" as a tangible capitalist mass-produced product
  - - - The fantasy may be intrusive
- - - - Asking how we can fill in these gaps - often through imagination
  - - - Being a passenger vs. driving
        
        Suggests an inevitable transition from childhood (or feeling like a child) to adulthood - sitting in cars in section two, whereas by section four (Routes, Best Before) the speakers are driving and deciding where to go
        
        Passengers also a metaphor for emotions in "Watching Movies" -
      - Engines
- - - - The imagined "tarless lake" of "Disappearing Act"
      - "The lake will swell like a loon call" in "Matters of Luck"
        
        The lake as a pure location, associated with fantasy
    - - "The condensation of a yogurt lid" - perpetual movement even in stillness in the fridge of "Organic Matter"
      - "Even the great arts blow to droplets as they pass / through me - prone to condensation"
      - Also mentioned in "The Cold Place"
    - - The bath as a location of reprieve and rest
        
        As articulated in "The Cold Place" and "Watching Movies, Protecting Dreams
      - A necessary and everyday routine of cleanliness
        
        Suggested in "Granted and Gone"
      - Ironic edge of "Bathwater" - drawing attention to how it can be collected, how water does not disappear after it is used, how "waste" can be commodified
    - - "The warm smell of new rain" providing peace and joy in "Twenty-Three, Hungry"
      - "Summers far from now, I imagine / even the rain will become a scorch" - rain becoming a source of climate anxiety
      - The eaves of "Plazas Are Smoothies" "throwing rain clear of the walls"
    - - Mentioned in Wild Crows
- - - - Stated verbatim in new revision of "Perfect Stage" - making compromises with fantasy, making do with what we already have, sufficiency in one's surroundings
      - A back-and-forth throughout the MS between "outlandish, tattered stories" and desires (Perfect Stage) and the contentment of gratitude ("I am trying, too" in Watching Movies, Protecting Dreams)
      - In "Twenty-Three, Hungry" "making do" is associated with an imperfect joy, things not turning out as planned
  - - - "A story so beautiful / I could sit in it for long hours / and feel no pain at all"
      - "I read and didn't think much / about anything else. This was the best part, / the not-thinking."
      - A temporary refuge from "reality"
    - - In The Cold Place, associated with the young girl's lack of agency, but also her sharp observation, as a method of learning
      - In Disappearing Act and Best Before, a method of self-scrutiny, distancing oneself from the body, associated with anxiety
      - In this section, then reinvented in Watching Movies, Protecting Dreams as a way of connection with OTHERS, of witness and empathy