Emerging from the Margins

In my PhD by Practice 'Emerging from the Margins: The Poetry of Chronic Illness' I aim to demonstrate that poetry’s stylistic range and formal properties make it a medium, well suited to expressing the experience of chronic illness. The book-length poetry collection will be informed by my own chronic condition. The generated poems will reflect on this lived experience, including onset, investigations, diagnosis and long-term management and will consider physical implications as well as the emotional impact. They will take account of the perceptions of others, particularly in relation to invisible conditions, including notions of madness. To add further depth and perspective to the collection, I will consider how other artists and public figures, such as Frida Kahlo, Florence Nightingale and Otto Kamensek, have responded, in their lives and work, to living with chronic illness.

This creative component will sit alongside a critical examination of contemporary British and Irish poetry of chronic illness.