Fortitude of the ordinary world

Brooke O'Shay Sheridan
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:49 PDT

"Fortitude of the Ordinary World is a thesis in three parts, disparate in subject but with a common theme: some of the most identifying, challenging, and ingrained aspects of being human - love, the workings of the human brain, and war. The poems are based on personal experience in and out of love, addressing various functions of the brain, and my work with the U.S. Army during wartime. Most of the poems are in free verse, though I created some structure within the formless form depending on the needs of the poem. I have also included some formal poems, including sonnet, quatrain, couplet, and ottava rima forms. I work with the power of the form to harness powerful, often difficult subject matter. Most of the war poems are in free verse, though many have benefited from attention to syllabics and internal rhyme. The love poems use enjambment and line breaks to find their power. In the brain power poems I look at the workings of the brain - spatial orientation, coma recovery, etc., with an associative narrative addressing aspects of the specific brain functions. The Baghdad poems, containing some of the heaviest and most emotional subject matter, fall into under stricter auspices of line and meter. I aim for the collective sensibility of experiences of joy tempered with pain, and, most importantly, pain tempered with joy"--Leaf iii