No subject for the inexperienced (poems)

Everest, Clay (2019) No subject for the inexperienced (poems). Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

No Subject for the Inexperienced is a collection of poems that explores the commodification of disaster narratives in the tourism industry and how these curated narratives influence our understanding of place. Focusing primarily on the relationship between the city of Halifax, the sinking of the Titanic, and the Halifax Explosion, the poems investigate how history is experienced and consumed by those within and without the culture, using a range of perspectives and materials. Museum artifacts, tourist brochures, as well local attractions are used to underscore their own commodification. A series of unreliable narrators, such as a conspiracy theorist, TripAdvisor reviewers, and a talkative barfly, reveal their own agendas as consumers and producers of culture. Finally, the collapse of a fictional relationship invites a consideration of how an author selectively creates and presents a private narrative to an audience, paralleling the larger public curation of history and culture. Through this collision of narratives, voices, and ephemera dealing with loss, No Subject for the Inexperienced ultimately critiques the ethics of ‘knowing’ a past, how history is packaged and sold in the present, and how our own relationships with place and history are influenced by the recirculation of these narratives.

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