New almanac

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Nicole Maria Stockburger (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Stuart Dischell

Abstract: “New Almanac” follows a young woman moving to her lover’s familial land in the Beulah community of Surry County, NC. She struggles to maintain her romantic relationship, while seeking her own identity within the landscape. In their first year working the land, using traditional methods, the lovers are surrounded by bad practices of monoculture operations and industrial chicken houses, but also homesteaders, the heavily storied history of the property, and people who actively reconstruct the supposed, singular identity of the rural, American South.As I research, live, and work in this community, I am finding music in farm work, in Appalachian foothills accents, stories of struggle and success, and an overwhelming sense that the natural world is integral to identity here. I am convinced that Americans want to understand the context of their favorite tasting tomato and everyone, regardless of demographic, should have access to chemical-free vegetables as they should have access to art and education. Often unaddressed in poetry is the connection between the land, the uniqueness of its people, and food natively grown in a particular area.In writing so specifically about the agricultural and personal landscapes within a single farm, I am uncovering the complexities of place: varied voices, historical and present, and the human longing to connect with the growing and the growers of food. I wish to write the bitter and beautiful moments of young people farming in the twenty-first century, and to rewrite the notion that our society has advanced away from the value of small farms and the people who make up these communities.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2017
Keywords
Love, Nature, Poem, Poetry, Sun, Trees
Subjects
Farm life $z North Carolina $z Surry County $v Poetry

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