An intimate distance: Poems

• Main Author: Salazar, Maria Teresa Maningat
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Poems; Literary writings > Poetry; Literary criticism
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/3862; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_masteral/article/10700/viewcontent/CDTG004731_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

An Intimate Distance: Poems is a collection of thirty poems that explore the themes of silence, violence, isolation, and (dis)connect that are subtly apparent within the domestic sphere, from the performance of routine family obligations and mundane household chores to the (non)interaction of family members with themselves and with the outside world. The domestic sphere here is defined as a house. More specifically, it is a suite of rooms that make up a condominium unit, a structure that Gaston Bachelard refers to in The Poetics of Space as a superimposed box or a conventional hole. The poems represent a fascination with and a tentative exploration of the emotional distance or psychological distance between and among family members despite physical proximity, especially in the domestic environment that they are living in. The poems also ask, What is it like to share ones life and space with other people? This heightened degree of intimacy can cause us to create barriers in order to maintain our individuality, our separateness. The poems also seek to record aspects of human activities or experiences in the spaces of a typical house through the voice of a speaker not very distant from this writer. The poems are also clustered around the theme of feeling a sense of intimacy and yet a feeling of restraint within the domestic environment or the house. There is a desire to connect to other members of the family, but at the same time, there is the desire to be separate from them. ii Preceding the poetry manuscript is an essay that elaborates on my thoughts concerning lyric poetry and the autobiographical moments that inspired the conceptualization and writing of the poems in this collection.