Thesis Defence: The Temple of Wood and Grass

Bibek Adhikari, supervised by Professor Matt Rader, will defend their thesis titled “The Temple of Wood and Grass” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

An abstract for Bibek Adhikari’s thesis is included below.

Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in person defences.

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ABSTRACT

The thesis, The Temple of Wood & Grass, is a collection of part-lyric, part-narrative poems that juxtaposes and entangles life from two valleys of two continents. Drawing on themes of labour migration, diasporic despair, romantic disappointment, and urban loneliness, the collection chronicles around dual places, cultures, and languages, with a particular emphasis on unravelling brownness as an identity and experience in a predominantly white city of Canada. Using conversations, doubleness, and associative leaping as primary poetic impulses, the thesis works as a portrait of the poet in two landscapes: at times real and at others imagined (as in the East imagined from the West and the West imagined from the East). The work intentionally focuses on home and family in Nepal, the temptations of the West, the exodus as a metaphor for an entire generation, and the speaker’s eventual disillusionment. This further leads to moments of questioning, where the speaker’s skepticism is balanced by the generously disposed humour. Often the consciousness of the poet (and the speaker) is situated in uninspiring circumstances, and the poetry that springs forth from these sites are rueful and sarcastic. A sense of estrangement appears in the poetic stance which the thesis tries to magnify by making Kathmandu (home) much more poetic than it really is. Kelowna, however, seems empty and lifeless for the poet in the beginning, yet this exoticism doesn’t endure because the speaker shares his sense of alienation with the local Canadians and the immigrants at the service-level industry. Ultimately, the thesis strives to contribute to the Canadian literary landscape by offering a South Asian man’s perspective on the experiences of a racialized individual navigating twin cultures and languages while working to make ends meet. It aims to engage not just South Asians but also North American readers with its personal, political, and philosophical exploration of multiculturalism and foster empathy.