Sue’s Poetry Research

My research focuses on poetry writing and other aspects of poetry learning and pedagogy. I particularly enjoy working collaboratively with other poets and educators to explore key questions about our craft which will enable young people to participate in poetry and to enjoy the genre’s rich and diverse forms of expression.

In 2021, a paper I wrote with Nick McGuinn has been published in New Writing. Entitled ‘Being allowed: negotiating space for poetry writing with literature examination students’ it focuses on issues of permission and the space for creative writing practice which emerged from poetry writing workshop with UK English Literature students aged 16–18. It is available to everyone through open access: https://tinyurl.com/z5ybkp5r

Currently, I am working with Anthony Wilson from Exeter University to investigate young people’s poetry writing development See Wilson and Dymoke 2017 (published in the Journal of Writing Research) on our two year project Young Poets’ Stories. This focuses on the writing development of award winning and highly commended poets from the The Foyle Young Poet of the Year Awards 2012-2019 (run by The Poetry Society). It considers the potential impacts of creative mentoring and other opportunities, which may be offered by competition success, for the young poets to enter a community of writers. Our research is funded by The Foyle Foundation and the project runs until June 30th 2022. If would like to know more please refer to our research website at Youngpoetsstories.com or contact me at sue.dymoke@ntu.ac.uk for further details.

Published online March 31st 2021: Sue Dymoke & Nicholas McGuinn (2021) Being allowed: negotiating space for poetry writing with literature examination students  New Writing,  Pages: 1-12 | https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2021.1891257

In 2020 I had two new publications:

1. Hennessy, J., Marlow, N., Alexander, J. & Dymoke, S. (2020) ‘Professional contraction and the growth of teacher confidence. Experiences in the teaching of poetry from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland’, Oxford Review of Education. DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2020.1835627  This focuses on a SCOTENs funded project which explores the views of teachers of poetry at Post-16 level. 
2. Dymoke, S. (2020) Creativity in English Learning and Teaching in J. Davison & C. Daly (eds) Debates in English Teaching (2nd Edn). London: Routledge. pp 79 -91. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429506871  This chapter will, I hope, be particularly useful to English Teachers especially those who are in the early stages of their careers and/or are investigating creative practices for their Masters research.

In 2019 my published collaboration is with Yuka Nakai at the University of Shimane. Our paper (written in Japanese) appears in The Science of Reading is: Collaborative research between UK and Japan on poetry writing pedagogy in the global age: Trialling poetry writing workshop techniques and can be downloaded here: 61_97

I collaborated with Pietro Roversi to write DNA Time, a poetry experiment. The poem adheres to the coding conventions that protein chemists and geneticists have agreed on to describe proteins and DNA. It contains two complementary strands and, like the double helix, follows the rules that translate a DNA sequence into a protein sequence. You can hear us talking about this project on BBC 4 The Art of Now. The programme Recombinant Rhymes and DNA Art, was broadcast in Feb 2019 and seems to have stimulated a lot of interest. It was great to know we are working at the cutting edge of Artsci and to hear about the exciting work that other artists are engaged in. We were delighted with the version of DNA Time produced by Nigel, the sound mixer, and with producer Anna McNamee’s clear explanations and insightful questions. If you missed it, catch up at BBC Sounds

In 2018 Anthony Wilson and I presented our work at BERA conference as part of a Poetry Writing, Reading, Learning and Teaching symposium within the English in Education SIG. Other presentations were given by by Julie Blake (from her doctoral research GCSE poetry anthologies), Gary Snapper (on A level students’ experiences of poetry) and Nicola Marlow from University of Ulster (on a SCOTENs funded project on Teacher Confidence and post-16 poetry teaching in the north and south of Ireland). There was a good deal of synergy between the presentations, particularly concerning the social and cultural contexts in which poetry is experienced by young people and how teachers make choices about poetry text selections.