Words Between Worlds: Ekphrastic Poetry and Habitus Dislocation

This creative-critical PhD will consider the working-class artist as 'transgressor' across boundaries of
'habitus' (as defined by Bourdieu). Investigating intersections between poetry and photography, it will
propose ekphrastic poetry as a type of 'humanist documentary' which can address questions of identity
instigated by class migration. To further explore the idea of 'humanist documentary' in poetry, I will
examine how women poets in the North-East have engaged with and 'transgressed' their working-class
origins. Finally, I will enact this 'crossing' in my own work, using photographs by Richard Billingham and
others as springboards for a poetic sequence charting my own 'habitus dislocation'.