MA brochure - Modern Poetry - Queen's University Belfast

Miriam Gamble,
poet and former
PhD student, on
why she chose the
School of English at
Queen’s
“I had the time of my life studying
poetry at Queen’s – critically and
creatively, intellectually and socially
(one and the same thing, which is
unusual and precious). I came by
accident, but it’s the best hand
serendipity has ever dealt me. I wrote
my first book of poems there, forged my
best and most enduring friendships.”
(2) American Poetry: from Dickinson to Olds –
this module examines some of the main currents of
American poetry from the close of the nineteenth
century to the present day.
(3) Irish Poetry: W.B. Yeats to the present:
beginning with Yeats, this module explores the key
figures and movements in Irish poetry through the
twentieth and into the twenty-­‐first century
B. CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY
(1) Poetry Workshops: a series of twelve weekly
2-­‐hour workshop to which students bring their
poems to be discussed with the convenor and the
other students.
(2) The Long Poem: This six-­‐week module will
investigate the various formal and thematic
possibilities of the contemporary long poem.
Contemporary long poems by Alice Oswald,
Stanley Moss, Leontia Flynn, James McMichael,
Robert Pinksy and Paul Muldoon (among others)
will be discussed in class with a view to analysing
the contemporary long poem’s peculiar challenges
and achievements. Students will be working on
their own long poem throughout the module.
(3) Poetics of Translation: The Poetics of
Translation is a practical 6-­‐week course in
negotiating language. Students will be given a
selection of poems from other languages, together
with 'literal' translations and several versions by
translators and poet/translators, and will discuss
how these vary in their interpretation of the
originals. Students will then produce their own
translations, together with a commentary on the
process. Knowledge of a second language is
helpful, but by no means essential, since the
exercise deals primarily with examining register
and tone in the English language. "Translating from
the Italian, Tuscan or Florentine, I found myself
translating as much from English, or various
Englishes." (Ciaran Carson, The Inferno of Dante
Alighieri)
Dissertation/Portfolio – compulsory 15,000 word
independent research work on a topic developed
from the taught modular coursework, completed
by mid-­‐September and overseen by a specified
member of staff on the MA, or a portfolio of poems
plus accompanying critical commentary supervised
by a poet teaching on the MA programme.
PhD in English, Modern Poetry
Doctoral research in Modern Poetry includes but is
not restricted to the work of poets working in
English from the early modern period to the
present day.
Recently completed doctoral theses:
Towards a Supreme Poetry: The Ecstatic Self in the
Poetry of Wallace Stevens and Sylvia Plath (2011)
“For a word’s sake”: Theological Aesthetics in
Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry (2010)
The Seamus Heaney Digital Archive: The Public
Performance of Poetry (2010)
Urban Confetti: Benjamin, Carson, O’Hara and the
Figure of the Modern Urban Poet (2009)
Form, Genre and Lyric Subjectivity in Contemporary
British and Irish Poetry (2008)