Advisory Committee Chair
Adam Vines
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2024
Degree Name by School
Master of Arts (MA) School of Education
Abstract
NORTH OAKDALE JOHN GALLAGHER ENGLISH ABSTRACT North Oakdale is a collection of poems about a family, a woman, a man, and their daughter, coping during the first fifteen months of the Covid-19 pandemic. The family experiences an upheaval when they are not able to work due to the lockdown. The dynamics between the man and the woman alter. The family decides to plant a garden and vegetable patch. The woman, as a journalist, tries to freelance but to no avail. The man decides to wait it out and spends most of his time watching their daughter and gardening. As the months pass, the woman withdraws from the family and slides into depression. The man does his best to take care of the woman and raise their daughter, but the daughter prefers the woman. The family tries to find the right balance in their lives, but they temper that balance with the possibility of leaving the house in a several months. During the second spring of the pandemic, they begin to find their new sense of normalcy. Keywords: family, depression, gardening, child-rearing.
Recommended Citation
Gallagher, John, "North Oakdale" (2024). All ETDs from UAB. 3853.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/3853