About

Dr Jonathan Skinner is Reader in English and Comparative Literary Studies and teaches Ecocriticism and Creative Writing. His interests include Contemporary Poetry and Poetics; Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies; Small Press Culture; Sound Studies; Critical Theory; and Translation. He is founder and editor of ecopoetics, a journal which features creative-critical intersections between writing and ecology.

Research interests

My main interests are ecopoetics and contemporary poetry and poetics (mostly North American, but with an international scope and emphasis). I have published critical essays on Charles Olson, Michael McClure, Ronald Johnson, Lorine Niedecker, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Bernadette Mayer, translations of French poetry and garden theory, essays on bird song from the perspective of ethnopoetics, and essays on horizontal concepts such as the Third Landscape. Currently, I am writing a book of investigative poems on the urban landscapes of Frederick Law Olmsted, editing an anthology of ecopoetics for a university press, and pursuing a creative-critical project in acoustic ecology, called Vibrational Communication.

Teaching and supervision

My current teaching includes the modules:

• EN2F2/3F2 Ecopoetics: Poetry and World-EcologyLink opens in a new window
• EN2L2/3J8 The Question of the AnimalLink opens in a new window
• EN2H0/3H0 Small Press PublishingLink opens in a new window 
• EN9ZE Critical EnvironmentsLink opens in a new window
• EN9L3 Ecopoetics WorkshopLink opens in a new window
• EN3E0 DissertationLink opens in a new window
• EN3L3 Research ProjectLink opens in a new window

My past teaching has included the modules:

• EN124 Modes of Writing: An Introduction (Unit 2: Writing Poetry)
• EN232 Composition & Creative Writing (Science Writing Unit)
• EN238 Practice of PoetryLink opens in a new window
• EN908 Writing PoetryLink opens in a new window
• EN248 Modern American Poetry (Term 2: Post-war American poetry and poetics)

Current PhD supervision:

Nicola Hamer, "Beyond Elegy: Confronting Grief in Contemporary Ecopoetry"
September 2021 -
AHRC M4C Doctoral Training Partnership
(Co-supervision with Dr Fabienne Viala)

Lizzie Smith, "The 'Environmental Uncanny': Unsettling the Multispecies Encounter in Contemporary Environmental Poetry"
September 2021 -
AHRC M4C Doctoral Training Partnership
(Co-supervision with Dr Nick Lawrence)

Joe Bedford, "Green, Pleasant and Ours: Challenging ‘Far-right Ecologism’ through Contemporary Environmental Fiction"
September 2021 -
AHRC M4C Doctoral Training Partnership
(Co-supervision with Dr Jonathan Taylor and Dr Bernhard Forchtner, University of Leicester)

Helena Hunter, "Algae Ecologies: Scale, Temporality and Modes of Address in Contemporary Anthropocene Poetry."
September 2022 -
AHRC M4C Doctoral Training Partnership
(Co-supervision with Dr Sarah Jackson, Dr Philip Leonard, and Dr Sally Little)

Completed PhDs supervised:

Tom Crompton, “Poetics of the Deindustrialising Landscape," April 2024
Sam Weselowski (co-supervised with Dr Myka Tucker-Abramson and Nick Lawrence): “Metropolitan Frontiers: Vancouver Poetry and the Urban Form of Extraction, 1965-2018,” October 2024

I have supervised MA dissertations in modernist poetry and ecocriticism, as well as Long Projects in Poetry (Creative Writing) with the Warwick Writing Program.

I welcome supervisions in the areas listed under my research interests, for projects with a focus on poetry and poetics.

Selected publications

Essays and Book Chapters

• "Dialectical Sonorities: Carbon Footprints in Peter Culley’s The Climax ForestLink opens in a new window," with Tom Crompton, Études Anglaises 74-1 (2021): 82-103.

• “Blockade Chants and Cloud-Nets: Terminal Poetics of the Anthropocene,” The Cambridge Companion to 21st Century American Poetry, ed. Timothy Yu (University of Cambridge Press, 2021)
• “What Sounds: Larry Eigner’s Environments,” Momentous Inconclusions: The Life and Work of Larry EignerLink opens in a new window, eds. George Hart and Jennifer Bartlett (University of New Mexico Press, 2021)
• “The Unbending of the Faculties: Learning from Frederick Law Olmsted,” Geopoetics in PracticeLink opens in a new window, eds. Eric Magrane, Linda Russo, Sarah de Leeuw, and Craig Santos Perez (Routledge Press, 2019)
• “Stirrup Notes: Fragments on Listening,” Writing the Field Recording: Sound, Word, EnvironmentLink opens in a new window, ed. Stephen Benson and Will Montgomery (Edinburgh University Press, 2018)

• “Visceral Ecopoetics in Charles Olson and Michael McClure: Proprioception, Biology, and the Writing Body,” Ecopoetics: Essays in the FieldLink opens in a new window, ed. Angela Hume and Gillian Osborne (University of Iowa Press, 2018)

• “Ecopoetics,” American Literature in Transition 2000-2010Link opens in a new window, ed. Rachel Greenwald Smith (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

• “Call the Pulsing Home: Poetry, Fascination and Resonance in Ecocritical Environments,” Ecocriticism: Environments in Anglophone LiteraturesLink opens in a new window, ed. Sonja Frenzel and Birgit Neumann (anglistik & englischunterricht, 2017)

• “Vibrational Communication: Ecopoetics in the Seismic Channel,” Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate ChangeLink opens in a new window, ed. Heidi Lyn Staples and Amy King (BlazeVOX [books], 2017)

• "Gardens of Resistance: Gilles Clément, New Poetries, and Future Landscapes." Qui Parle, Special Issue: At the Intersections of EcocriticismLink opens in a new window, ed. Katrina Dodson. 19.2 (Spring/Summer 2011).

• "Thoughts on Things: Poetics of the Third Landscape," )((eco (lang) (uage (reader))Link opens in a new window, ed. Iijima, Brenda (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs and Nightboat Books, 2010)
  
  Poetry

• Chip CallsLink opens in a new window (Little Red Leaves, 2014)
• Birds of TifftLink opens in a new window (BlazeVOX [books], 2011)
• WarblersLink opens in a new window (San Francisco: Albion Books, 2010)
• Political Cactus PoemsLink opens in a new window (Palm Press, 2005)
  
  Translation
• In Praise of Vagabonds (selections) by Gilles Clément. Qui Parle 19.2Link opens in a new window (Spring/Summer 2011).
• "Toto," Ma Langue est Poétique--Selected Work, Christophe Tarkos (Roof Books, 2000)
  
  Edited
• ecopoeticsLink opens in a new window, vols. 1-7 (2001-2007)
  
  Online
• Jacket2 CommentariesLink opens in a new window
• "Statement of Poetic ResearchLink opens in a new window." Common-place. Vol. 11, no. 4.5. September 2011.
  

  Professional service

  External examiner for BA Creative Writing, University of Roehampton.

  Peer Reviewer for ASAP/Journal, Contemporary Women’s Writing, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, University of Alabama Press Modern and Contemporary Poetics, Palgrave Macmillan and Paideuma, amongst others.

  External PhD examiner at University of Western Sydney (2014), University of Southampton (2017), University of Nottingham (2019), University of Essex (2019), University of Umeå (2020), Nottingham Trent University (2021), University of Otago (2022), University of Edinburgh (2022), Bangor University (2022).