The purpose of this creative thesis was to explore the state of exile via the use of the contemporary lyric poem. Written primarily in free verse, with some poems written in the traditional forms of the sonnet, haiku and senryu, the thesis explored exile and its variant themes of colonization, assimilation, familial history, cultural and personal myth. The result was the discovery that the lyric poem is an ideal, productive and fluid medium through which a poet can consider and encounter the liminality of exile identity.
