Zoë Skoulding’s soundscapes: towards a lyric ecology

Nick Selby

Zoë Skoulding’s soundscapes: towards a lyric ecology

Nick Selby

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

Abstract

This essay examines Zoë Skoulding’s poetics of the soundscape across three
collections — Remains of a Future City (2008), The Museum of Disappearing
Sounds (2013), and A Marginal Sea (2022) — arguing that her work constitutes a
distinctive lyric ecology. Drawing on R. Murray Schafer’s concept of the
soundscape, Timothy Morton’s ecological thought, and Jane Bennett’s vibrant
materialism, the essay contends that Skoulding’s experimental lyric practice
enacts attentive listening to the entangled relations between poem, body, and
environment. Through analysis of her deployment of noise, birdsong, polyphony,
and Situationist-inflected techniques of détournement and dérive, the essay
demonstrates how Skoulding’s soundscapes bridge the human and the non-human in a mode of eco-poiesis.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Tongue and Terrain
Subtitle of host publication	Zoë Skoulding’s Environmental Poetics
Editors	Grzegorz Czemiel, Julia Fiedorczuk
Publisher	Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
ISBN (Print)	978-3-7370-2080-0
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 2026

Publication series

Name	Culture - Envronment - Society. Humanities and beyond
Publisher	Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Cite this

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title = "Zo{\"e} Skoulding{\textquoteright}s soundscapes: towards a lyric ecology",

abstract = "This essay examines Zo{\"e} Skoulding{\textquoteright}s poetics of the soundscape across three collections {\textemdash} Remains of a Future City (2008), The Museum of Disappearing Sounds (2013), and A Marginal Sea (2022) {\textemdash} arguing that her work constitutes a distinctive lyric ecology. Drawing on R. Murray Schafer{\textquoteright}s concept of the soundscape, Timothy Morton{\textquoteright}s ecological thought, and Jane Bennett{\textquoteright}s vibrant materialism, the essay contends that Skoulding{\textquoteright}s experimental lyric practice enacts attentive listening to the entangled relations between poem, body, and environment. Through analysis of her deployment of noise, birdsong, polyphony, and Situationist-inflected techniques of d{\'e}tournement and d{\'e}rive, the essay demonstrates how Skoulding{\textquoteright}s soundscapes bridge the human and the non-human in a mode of eco-poiesis.",

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year = "2026",

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AU - Selby, Nick

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N2 - This essay examines Zoë Skoulding’s poetics of the soundscape across three collections — Remains of a Future City (2008), The Museum of Disappearing Sounds (2013), and A Marginal Sea (2022) — arguing that her work constitutes a distinctive lyric ecology. Drawing on R. Murray Schafer’s concept of the soundscape, Timothy Morton’s ecological thought, and Jane Bennett’s vibrant materialism, the essay contends that Skoulding’s experimental lyric practice enacts attentive listening to the entangled relations between poem, body, and environment. Through analysis of her deployment of noise, birdsong, polyphony, and Situationist-inflected techniques of détournement and dérive, the essay demonstrates how Skoulding’s soundscapes bridge the human and the non-human in a mode of eco-poiesis.

AB - This essay examines Zoë Skoulding’s poetics of the soundscape across three collections — Remains of a Future City (2008), The Museum of Disappearing Sounds (2013), and A Marginal Sea (2022) — arguing that her work constitutes a distinctive lyric ecology. Drawing on R. Murray Schafer’s concept of the soundscape, Timothy Morton’s ecological thought, and Jane Bennett’s vibrant materialism, the essay contends that Skoulding’s experimental lyric practice enacts attentive listening to the entangled relations between poem, body, and environment. Through analysis of her deployment of noise, birdsong, polyphony, and Situationist-inflected techniques of détournement and dérive, the essay demonstrates how Skoulding’s soundscapes bridge the human and the non-human in a mode of eco-poiesis.

UR - https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/themen-entdecken/literatur-sprach-und-kulturwissenschaften/sprach-und-literaturwissenschaften/literaturwissenschaft-komparatistik/60837/tongue-and-terrain

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 978-3-7370-2080-0

T3 - Culture - Envronment - Society. Humanities and beyond

BT - Tongue and Terrain

A2 - Czemiel, Grzegorz

A2 - Fiedorczuk, Julia

PB - Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

ER -

Zoë Skoulding’s soundscapes: towards a lyric ecology

Abstract

Publication series

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