Yvonne Knop Libri

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "I Am Waiting" is one of the most significant politically motivated poems of the 20th a work of radical social criticism from the 1950s that affords its readers detailed insights into America's Cold War culture and portrays the unique historical moment when the United States gained global power. This study of "I Am Waiting" conducts a close reading of the poem's poetic form, contextualizes it within the socio-cultural and political conflicts of the 1950s, and traces its intertextual references throughout American history.

I just got sacked. I'm permanently drunk. I have cancer. I'm inescapably gay. I was hit by a bus. And, incidentally, I've fallen in love with a stranger whose life I saved. My name is Andrew Thomas, newly-unemployed Sherlock Holmes scholar, and I don't know how to do any of this. I know only Holmes can help me untangle this madness, and he isn't real. Except he absolutely appeared in my house, told me I'm in love with a man I just met, and then in a fit of pique I sent him away. Maybe he's a hallucination or a specter or a ghost (pick one?), but now I desperately need Holmes' help. So to find the answer to my case and the man of my dreams, I'm chasing a fictional character through London with my very own Watson (hi Mina). Business as usual.