David Nowell Smith

My work thus far has primarily been in philosophical poetics, and in particular has been focused on fundamental concepts of poetics: voice, rhythm, form, medium, lyric, metaphor.

I am author of three monographs. Sounding/Silence: Martin Heidegger at the Limits of Poetics (Fordham UP, 2013) traced Heidegger's radical rethinking of some of the fundamental concepts of poetics; On Voice in Poetry: The Work of Animation (Palgrave, 2015) focused on just one of these concepts. W. S. Graham: The Poem as Art Object (OUP 2022) built on this exploration of the concepts of poetics through a study of a single poetic repertoire, centring on the problematic of poetic objecthood. 

I am now working on the long history of the tension between the notion of a civic vocation for the poet, and lyric poetry as a vehicle for private expression.

• I am co-editor of English: Journal of the English Association (https://academic.oup.com/english/)
• I edited the online poetics journal Thinking Verse (www.thinkingverse.org) from 2011-15.

The central concern of my work thus far has been with how ‘philosophical’ thinking can illuminate our understanding of the technical specificity of art media, and in particular the linguistic medium of poetry. I have written on various topics in poetics and continental philosophy, especially the work of Martin Heidegger, on lyric poets including Keats, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Hopkins, and W. S. Graham, and on contemporary poetry.

I currently convene LDCL4015A: Reading and Writing Criticism, and the Dissertation modules.

My Autumn office hours are 13:30-14:30 on Mondays and Tuesdays, either in person or via Teams.