The Visual Spaces of Poetry 1920-2021

This critical-creative PhD will examine one central issue through three linked approaches. I will develop a practice-based understanding of one of the most recognisable, but under-conceptualised, aspects of Western poetry: the significance of a poet's use of blank, visual space on the page.

My creative work will exemplify my critical study, using visual space and non-conventional publishing to tell a fractured family history of migration and language loss. The critical study will focus on materials from UEA's newly-launched Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive (CCPA), thefirst PhD designed to do so. To inform my use, I will therefore self-curate an archive of my creative process.

My final submission will be a 50,000-word critical work, a self-curated archive, and a final exhibition of 20 visually-innovative poems, each poem embodied in various forms, both print and digital. The central question of my critical research is as follows: how have poets since 1978 recognisedand used visual space in their poetry, given changing technologies for both writing and publishing poetry?