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​Thanks to a grant from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Durham University, I have been able to visit and study John Wieners’ extensive archives held in the Bird Library at Syracuse University, NY, the Burns Library at Boston College, MA, and the Morris Library at University of Delaware, DE.

 

I have also studied the archives of Robert Lowell (1917-1977) at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, TX, and the Houghton Library at Harvard, Cambridge, MA. At the same time, I interviewed the poet Frank Bidart, who worked closely with Lowell between 1966 and Lowell’s death in 1977. This work led to an article on confessional poetry in The Times Literary Supplement → 

 

​I have organised a series of seminars on poetry and poetics at Durham University with invited poets including Mary Jean Chan, Luke Kennard, Zosia Kuczyńska, Paul Maddern, Kim Moore, Padraig Regan, and Richard Scott.​

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I have a PhD in Creative Writing from Durham University. My thesis comprised a portfolio of original poetry in four sections—Unshut, The Dreams of Goat, Bight of the Knot, Papigo—and a critical dissertation on John Wieners, looking at his work through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, queer theory, and the philosophical ideas of Giorgio Agamben in relation to temporality. The abstract of my thesis is downloadable here →​