“Poetry and Autobiography”
A special issue of Life Writing (volume 6, number 1 - April 2009)
Edited by Jo Gill, University of Exeter and Mel Waters, University of Newcastle

Submissions of articles (8000 words max) and shorter reflections (up to 2000 words) are invited for a special issue of the journal Life Writing on the theme of "Poetry and Autobiography". This special issue will examine some of the assumptions about, and crossovers between, the discrete disciplines of life writing and poetry. While poetry, as a genre which is persistently exercised by questions about language, form, subjectivity, authority, truth, and reference, shares much common ground with life writing, the relationship between the two genres is rarely interrogated. In addition, so-called "personal" poetry is infrequently read with an attentiveness to the kinds of questions about authenticity and representation with which prose life writing is often (and productively) met.

Contributions to this special issue of Life Writing will ask what, if anything, is distinctive about autobiographical poetry; what are the conventions and practices which attach to the form and shape the ways in which it is read? What does it demand of its practitioners and what does it offer to its readers? How useful are current theories of life writing -- predicated as they often are on a study of prose narrative -- to the study of the poetic text? How, if at all, might scholars of poetry and autobiography begin to bridge the gaps that separate the two disciplines in existing critical discourses? Is it necessary to rethink dominant interpretative frameworks in the light of the insights offered by poetry?

We invite papers which consider the complicated relationship between the two genres, and which address the hypothesis that poetry might have something valid to contribute to the theory and practice of life writing. Likewise, we are keen to see scholarship that asks how theories of life writing might help to expose and understand the complexity of the poetic "I".

In common with the Aims and Scope of the journal, we are interested in work that incorporates an interdisciplinary perspective and we welcome submissions which broaden the geographical focus of life writing beyond the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

Work submitted to the Articles section should follow the journal's usual style guidelines (see http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14484528.asp ). Work submitted to the Reflections section carries critically informed personal narrative linking theory and experience; on this occasion, the journal is happy to consider poetry in this section. Items in both sections must be original and unpublished. All submissions undergo an anonymous peer-review process.

Initial enquiries may be addressed to j dot r dot gill at ex dot ac dot uk or m dot j dot waters at newcastle dot ac dot uk . Please submit completed articles by e-mail attachment to both of the above addresses, or by post to:

Dr. Jo Gill, Department of English, University of Exeter, Queen's Building, Queen's Drive, Exeter, EX4 4QH, UK

Mel Waters, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, PercyBuilding, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK.