Liam-Lucille Wright

Thesis title: (Un)Natural: Queer Ecopoetry for Life

Biography

Background

Liam-Lucille Wright (they/them, iel) is a queer British-French poet originally from Strasbourg, France. Some of the themes they enjoy writing poems about are queer experiences, ecology, transness, place, self-aware poetry and climate change. They often take an experimental, cross-medium approach to their work, such as making shape poems, combining French and English to make Frenglish lines, reading poems in time with audio recordings and soundtracks, and making illustrations to accompany different pieces.

With their PhD thesis being on queer ecopoetry, Liam-Lucille's research interests are on queer ecology, poetry as place, writing urban and wild ecology, ecological movements and transformations in poetry, in-situ fieldnotes, field-recordings for poems, nature and the individual, and embodying pollution and climate change with formal experimentation.

Liam-Lucille's poetry has featured in publications such as From Arthur's Seat, orangepeel literary magazine, Ouch! Collective and Beyond the Veil Press, with another poem due to be released in Forest Publishing's upcoming Origin Stories anthology. They have read their work at events like Rock the Boat, Hotchpotch, Shore Poets and Soapbox, and they endeavour to read at many more open mics like these.

Liam-Lucille graduated from the University of Dundee in 2021 with a first class bachelor's degree in English and Creative Writing before undertaking a master's in Creative Writing (poetry course) at the University of Edinburgh, for which they received their degree with a distinction in 2022. Liam-Lucille is currently studying their Creative Writing PhD on queer ecopoetry at the University of Edinburgh with Jane McKie, Dr. Patrick Errington and Tim Cresswell as their supervisors.

Research summary

As part of my research project, I am looking to embody the ways in which ecology is queer, and the ways in which queerness is ecological through my poetry. I am interested in researching this by drawing attention to the senses, grounding my writing in specific locations and experimenting with a variety of poetic forms and mediums in both in my research notes and my poetry.

Through my reading, I also aim to uncover how ecological feminist, queer and post-colonial theory can guide efforts in creative writing, particularly around themes of transience, memory, physicality, movement, transformation and scale.

List of research and writing interests:

Queer ecopoetry; Queer ecology; Poems as places; Writing urban and wild ecology; Ecological movements and transformations in poetry; In situ fieldnotes; Field recordings for poems; Environment, "Nature" and the individual; Embodying internal and environmental change with formal experimentation; Shape poems; Multilingual writing; Illustration in poetry

Knowledge exchange

I aim for my project to be approachable as an intellectual and practical example for how creatives can turn to the queerness of different ecological environments to make their art. In so doing, I want my work to promote environmental preservation and LGBTQI+ rights in academic and creative writing readerships, empowering both causes by relating them to one-another. 

This article was published on