Dr. Anna Nickerson

Biography

Professor Anna Nickerson focuses on the intersection of poetry and philosophy. Her work draws on the insight of Coleridge that poetry possesses its own logic, which provides a unique path to understanding the world. She is particularly interested in how poetry can enable a deeper comprehension of experiences that typically lie outside standard knowledge. Currently, she is completing a book titled 'Gerard Manley Hopkins: Manifoldness of Knowledge', which explores the thoughts of English Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. This study examines how the act of 'thinking' in Hopkins' poetry occurs amid divided attention. Another project, tentatively named 'Hopkins and Modernists', investigates the significant impacts of the posthumous publication of Hopkins' poems from 1918 to 1930 on modernist verse-writing. Nickerson's research also encompasses the works of notable poets such as Alfred Tennyson, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Kathleen Raine. She teaches poetry and poetics with a particular focus on nineteenth and twentieth-century verse. As an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she is also responsible for the Tower Poetry initiative, which promotes the appreciation of poetry among young people in education through competitions and summer schools.

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