Lawrence author and Kansas University professor of english, Megan Kaminski is pictured on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015 in her Lawrence home.

There have been a lot of allegorical women throughout literary history — be it Natura, Fortuna or Providencia. The worlds they inhabit aren’t usually their own, and the stories they’re a part of are usually someone else’s.

But in Megan Kaminski’s world, things are different. Natura, Fortuna and Providencia are sisters, and the story is theirs.

There are also the lost girls — a group of feral adolescents living in the woods — and they all have names, and more importantly, they all have voices. These are just some of the many characters that make up Kaminski’s upcoming book “Gentlewomen.”

Kaminski, a Kansas University assistant professor of English who teaches poetry, was awarded a Creative Work Fellowship by the Hall Center for the upcoming school year to work on “Gentlewomen,” a collection of poems that focuses on women and their voices by exploring allegorical figures.

Lawrence author and Kansas University professor of english, Megan Kaminski is pictured on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015 in her Lawrence home.

Kaminski said she’s interested in ways gentility, or ideas of politeness and of the roles women are supposed to perform, are limiting.

“In some ways creating this alternate world is this idea of blowing that up,” Kaminski said, noting that in addition to gender, class and race can also constrain people and get rid of possibilities they might have.

Kaminski’s first book of poetry, “Desiring Map,” was published in 2012, and her second book, “Deep City,” will come out in October. She is also the author of six chapbooks of poetry. Kaminski said “Gentlewomen” is distinct from her previous writing.

One of the things that sets “Gentlewomen” apart is its fantastical elements — hills talk, bodies of water talk, animals talk — a contrast from past works that are more rooted in reality, Kaminski said. But this isn’t oddity for the sake of itself.

“By creating this world that is kind of like our world but clearly is not, that gives possibilities rather than prescribing, ‘This is what we should do,'” Kaminski said, explaining that she’s interested in how art can create a more compassionate world, in which we have a greater connection to each other, animals and the natural world.

“We’re saying this is what we could do. It creates a space, I’m hoping, where we might say, ‘Well maybe this is possible,'” she added.

Kaminski said the poems aren’t meant to prescribe anything specific, but instead are a way to think about something different.

“I’m hoping that it creates a world that the reader can inhabit that allows the reader to see our own world differently,” Kaminski said. “A wholly immersive world that is both pleasurable and unnerving.”