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ESPaCH - School of English, Sociology, Politics & Contemporary History

Dr Scott Thurston

 

Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing

Crescent House 307

T +44 (0)161 295 3597

F +44 (0)161 295 5077

s.thurston@salford.ac.uk

My general areas of expertise are in Contemporary British Linguistically Innovative Poetry and Poetics, and the Pedagogy of Creative Writing teaching. My major activity has been in interviewing and critical writing about poets such as Allen Fisher, John Wilkinson, Adrian Clarke, Ira Lightman, Maggie O'Sullivan, Ulli Freer and Tony Lopez. I have also edited a collection of essays on the poet Geraldine Monk. I am currently working on an AHRC funded project to interview the poets Karen MacCormack, Jennifer Moxley, Caroline Bergvall and Andrea Brady and to produce critical writing on their poetry and poetics.

As a poet my most recent collection is a ninety poem sequence entitled Momentum. Hold, published in 2006, is a selection of poems spanning ten years of writing. My work is also featured at the Archive of the Now.

In my research I am interested in the role of poetics as a reflective discourse produced by writers. Studying and producing poetics can help to theorise contemporary practice and also develop new creative writing.

Supervision

I would welcome applications from prospective PhD candidates for practice-led research combining creative and critical writing in the area of innovative and experimental poetry. With the development of the new MA in Creative Writing and the establishment of Creative Writing and Poetry and Poetics research clusters in English, Salford is an excellent place to combine practical and critical study of innovative poetry and other experimental forms of new writing. Salford also has its own programme of visiting writers and strong links to the innovative writing scene in Manchester and Bury’s Text Festival.

Teaching

I currently teach on the following modules:

Undergraduate:

  • Introduction to Creative Writing 1 and 2
  • Writing Poetry in the 21st Century
  • Writing Poetry: New Departures
  • Final Portfolio

Postgraduate:

  • Theories of Writing
  • Writing Poetry in the 21st Century
  • Experimental Writing
  • Writing Workshop 1 and 2

Administrative Posts

I am Programme leader for the MA Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment.

Selected Creative Publications

Momentum (Exeter: Shearsman, 2008)

HOLD: Poems 1994-2004 (Exeter: Shearsman, 2006).

Anthologised in The Allotment: New Lyric Poets, ed. by Andy Brown (Exeter: Stride, 2006), pp. 208-15.

Selected Critical Publications

'If poetry is private language aspiring to be public, how should one write?', in Poetry and Public Language, ed. by Tony Lopez (Exeter: Shearsman, 2007), pp. 263-269.

Editor of The Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2007).

Interview with Tony Lopez, in The Argotist (viewable at www.argotistonline.co.uk) in 2007.

‘Audience and Representation: Method and Technique’ in The Paper 9 (September 2007), pp. 39-53.

'Ulli Freer: Space is the Place / Ulli Freer and Scott Thurston: An Interview', in Poetry Salzburg Review 9 (Spring 2006), pp. 169-187.

'Allen Fisher: Reading "Mummers' Strut"' in volume 4 of Eseje o wspólczesnej poezji brytyjskiej i irlandzkiej (Essays on Modern British and Irish Poetry) ed. Ludmila Gruszewska Blaim and David Malcolm (Gdansk: University of Gdansk Press, 2005), pp. 119-134.

For more information please see my SEEK page.

External Responsibilities