I first began writing poetry in the vortex of the London experimental poetry scene in the late 1980s when I regularly attended the Sub-Voicive poetry reading series and Bob Cobbing’s New River Project workshops. Following my first degree in English at UEA, I moved to Poland to teach for a few years. On my return, I studied for a PhD in Poetics under the supervision of Robert Sheppard at Edge Hill. I joined Salford in 1994 to set up our degree in English and Creative Writing and later established our Masters in Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment and our PhD pathway in Creative Writing.
I am passionate about poetry that dares to do different. I co-organised The Other Room – a reading series promoting experimental writing in Manchester for ten years and I co-founded and co-edit the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry (since 2009) – the first and only journal of its kind in the UK.
Since 2004, I have been developing a practice integrating dance and poetry which I call kinepoetics. This has involved me studying with dancers in Berlin and New York and collaborating with three dancers in the UK. I worked with Sarie Mairs Slee on the Arts Council funded project Vital Signs, with Julia Griffin on Dancing the Blues and Together Un/Tethered (both linked to the Arts for the Blues project — see below) and currently collaborate with dancer and researcher Gemma Collard-Stokes.
Following this interest into a collaboration with Dance Movement Psychotherapist Vicky Karkou and Counselling Psychologist Joanna Omylinska-Thurston, led to the founding of Arts for the Blues, a new creative group psychotherapy model.
I am also studying for a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Salford.
Research interests
Contemporary British and North American Innovative Poetry and Poetics; Experimental Dance and Movement Practices; Creative Approaches to health, Well-being and Therapeutic Practice
Modules I teach
Creative Practice; Critical Skills; Writing Poetry in the Twenty-first Century; New Departures: Reading and Writing Innovative Poetry; Teaching Creative Writing and Final Portfolio.
I also contribute to the postgraduate modules: Experimental Practice,
Creative Project, Theory, Text, Writing and Professional Practice.
I have supervised critical and creative PhD level research on a wide range of topics, including contemporary innovative poetry and poetics, performance, experimental writing.