Mary-Jane Holmes
Doctoral Student in Creative Writing - Mary-Jane’s thesis is entitled 'The Poet’s Version: Strategies of Resistance in Translation and the Un-silencing of the Female Voice'.
Research Project Title:
The Poet’s Version: Strategies of Resistance in Translation and the Un-silencing of the Female Voice
Supervisors:
Dr Tara Bergin, Prof Sinead Morrissey + Dr Pauline Henry-Tierney
Contact Details:
Email: m.holmes7@newcastle.ac.uk
Research Interests:
- Poetry
- Feminist Translation
- Transcultural Studies
Brief Outline of Research Project:
Drawing on feminist translation theory and poetic formalism to investigate whether translation can be successful in releasing the target text from its own gendered constraints, my PhD investigates the ancient poetic form called the Muwashshaha (Arabic for ‘girdled’; plural Muwashshahat) to ask whether translation of form across languages can create a new route to understanding how gender can be voiced in poetry today. I will produce a sequence of English ‘girdle songs’ in order to enact and respond to the effects of formal transference, and a critical essay that will explore the regenerative act of performative and dialogic translation.
Publications
- Don't Tell the Bees (novella)
- Dihedral (poetry)
- Heliotrope with Matches and Magnifying Glass (Poetry)
- Debut poetry collection Heliotrope with Matches and Magnifying Glass, Pindrop Press
Work appears in anthologies including Best Small Fictions 2014/2016/2018 and Best Microfictions 2020 and in a variety of other publications including Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Tishman Review, Magma, Barren, Spelk, Cabinet of Heed, Firewords, Flashback Fiction, Mslexia, Fictive Dream, The Lonely Crowd, and Prole.
Awards
- Winner of Wordview 2020, National Poetry Archive
- Winner of the Live Canon Poetry Pamphlet Competition
- Winner of the Bath Novella-in-Flash Prize, Judge’s Report
- Winner of Mslexia Flash Fiction Prize
- Winner of the Bridport Prize for Poetry