Dr Nikolai Duffy

I am a Senior Lecturer and the Co-Lead (with Michael Symmons Roberts) of the Poetry Research Group. I am also the Associate Head of the Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre.

My main areas of research contemporary poetry and poetics, critical-creative writing, the intersection between literature, philosophy, and visual art, and 19th-21st century American Literature. 

I am currently working on two projects: I am writing a critical-creative monograph on Lyric Hybrids, and I am in the process of completing my first novel.

I am the previous author of:

• UP THE CREEK (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2018); a collection of prose poems
• THE LITTLE SHED OF VARIOUS LAMPS (Very Small Kitchen, 2013), a hybrid work of poetry, prose and essay on the subject of mourning.
• RELATIVE STRANGENESS: READING ROSMARIE WALDROP (Shearsman, 2013); creative literary criticism [#1 Bestseller in USA, Small Press Distribution, April 2014).
• Editor of Rosmarie Waldrop’s selected poems, GAP GARDENING (New Directions, 2016), featured, among others, in THE NEW YORKER, MUSIC AND LITERATURE, LA REVIEW OF BOOKS; Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, 2017.

In addition, I have published essays on a number of subjects ranging from sculpture, contemporary fiction, small press publishing, and poetry. Previous poems have been published in a number of literary journals and magazines, and anthologies, most recently in POETRY REBELLION: POEMS AND PROSE TO REWILD THE SPIRIT (Batsford, 2021). My work has been read and performed internationally, including London, Manchester, Dublin, New York, Providence, Columbus, Ljubljana, and Bochum.In 2019 I was awarded a UNESCO City of Literature residency in Ljubljana. 

I also run a small literary press called Like This Press, which specialises in publishing handmade poetry pamphlets and limited edition books-in-boxes.

Academic and professional qualifications

• BA (Hons) English (Goldsmiths, University of London, 1999)
• MA Contemporary Approaches to English Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2002)
• PhD in experimental writing and philosophy (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2005)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

External Examiner Roles

I am currently the External Examiner for the MA Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment at the University of Salford. From 2015-2018 I was External Examiner for the MA Creative Writing programme at Edge Hill University. I have also been an external programme reviewer at the University of Liverpool and Keele University.

Expert reviewer for external funding bodies

I have peer-reviewed articles for diacritics and US Studies Online. I have also assessed grant applications for the Austrian Science Fund.

Membership of professional associations

Member of the Modern Languages Association, the British Association of American Studies, and the Poetry Society