like a sweet beast
Presentation Type
Performance
Abstract
Luke Holloway’s collection, like a sweet beast, explores a speaker’s attempt to come to terms with familial relations. Holloway’s poems consider how some people do not feel connected to their families in conventionally represented ways. Nuanced images like sand, sunscreen, old small shirts in closets, and being chased by animal control officers, capture the complexity and emotionally disorganized spaces that accompany idiosyncratic family dynamics. In like a sweet beast Holloway’s speaker reminds the reader that they can accept their family without approving of their patterns, or condemning their weakness. Like a sweet beast encourages its audience that while their homes might be unrecognizable to outsiders, each space has value and meaning.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Jan Harris
Recommended Citation
Holloway, Luke, "like a sweet beast" (2025). Student Scholar Symposium. 31.
https://digitalcollections.lipscomb.edu/student_scholars_symposium/2025/Full_schedule/31
like a sweet beast
Luke Holloway’s collection, like a sweet beast, explores a speaker’s attempt to come to terms with familial relations. Holloway’s poems consider how some people do not feel connected to their families in conventionally represented ways. Nuanced images like sand, sunscreen, old small shirts in closets, and being chased by animal control officers, capture the complexity and emotionally disorganized spaces that accompany idiosyncratic family dynamics. In like a sweet beast Holloway’s speaker reminds the reader that they can accept their family without approving of their patterns, or condemning their weakness. Like a sweet beast encourages its audience that while their homes might be unrecognizable to outsiders, each space has value and meaning.