This Woman's Work

ABSTRACT THIS WOMAN’S WORK by © Sarah T. Knowlton 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2009 The idea of gender specific roles is a common theme that modern society wrestles with even in today’s more enlightened times. The title of my project, This Woman’s Work, then acts on multiple levels referring to the work included in this collection as well as to the more literal meaning of what a woman’s work is supposed to be. The work of the woman here is not the stereotypical woman’s work of cooking and cleaning, but that of writer, teacher and scholar. All things are interconnected and continue to be born from past experience as they move forward into a new existence. This mixed genre collection of poems and creative non-fiction is no different and involves many topics that speak to each other as each finds its own life within this space. These topics include what it means to be a woman dealing with an expanding world of desires and expectations, as well as mining the themes of family, politics, and nature. In its continuing journey, this collection brushes against the fringes of larger concepts like privacy and the search for self while it seeks to reveal truth by examining the everyday experience. It reveals the cyclic nature of the day-to-day as well as delving into the historic nature of life as a contiguous, everevolving story -- specifically the story of this woman’s world.