Project overview
The proposal for this three-year fellowship involves researching ways of writing a contemporary poetry that is grounded in a multilingual cultural identity and that acknowledges the complex processes of cultural and linguistic self-awareness that such identity entails.
The project will enable me to explore in detail, and through various methods outlined in the Case for Support, what it means to write and perform a poetry written in several languages. It will also explore the modes of dissemination that are the most appropriate for this kind of writing. The research relies on a combination of theoretical work, such as engaging with forms of cultural translation that acknowledge polycultural identity, investigating the co-existence of European and non-European writing systems, and tracing existing poetic and/or performance projects that claim multilinguality as a crucial form of postcolonial identity, as well as on the ground research, such as developing contacts with local bilingual Southampton communities, and exploring modes of multilingual writing through an ongoing programme of specific practice-led research.
In the final year, the research will lead to the creation of a multilingual poetic text for performance to be presented as a public piece. The drafting of a collection of essays developed during the research will provide another output as a scholarly and practice-led volume around multilingualism and contemporary poetic forms. Southampton's Centre for Contemporary Writing, where this research will be housed, provides a conducive intellectual environment for this specific programme of research.
My work as a poet and performance artist consists typically of a process of imbrication of formal writing methodologies with specific cultural conditions. As a French-Norwegian dual-national and a poet writing in English and resident in England since 1989, I am intensely preoccupied with the changing voices of Europe. A number of my previous writing projects (published and presented as cross-arts projects) have involved working with accents, bilingual texts, literary translation, and hybrid idioms. I have done so through published literary and poetic forms but also through forms suited to ways of responding to writing and language that take poetry off the page.
The overall aim of the project is to raise awareness about multi-lingual poetics and the role they can play in developing new forms of cultural belonging and cultural awareness in contemporary Britain.