Contact
Biography
PhD (University of Edinburgh); MLitt (University of Aberdeen); BA (Vassar College, US)
I am an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing.
Before coming to University of Nottingham, I taught creative writing and English literature at University of Glasgow, University of Edinburgh, and the Scottish Universities' International Summer School.
I am a practising poet, and have three published collections of poetry: Urn & Drum (Shearsman, 2018); Soft Troika (If a Leaf Falls Press, 2016) and Allegories from my Kitchen (Sad Press, 2015). I also regularly perform my poetry in the UK and abroad. I co-edit the poetry and arts journal FRONT HORSE.
Expertise Summary
The main areas of my research and teaching are in creative writing and twentieth and twenty-first British and American literature, with a focus on modernist and contemporary poetry. I am particularly interested in experimental forms of production and performance of poetry, and the points of contact, historical and potential, between literary practice and visual arts.
My poetry and poetry criticism have been published in journals and anthologies. I have given lectures on poetry at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Little Sparta garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay. I am a member of the Critical Poetics interdisciplinary research group.
Literary Events and Outreach Initiatives
I am committed to connecting the practice and study of creative writing to wider research culture through innovative research and outreach methods.
I convene the Nottingham Poetry Exchange, a programme of poetry performances, seminars, and reading group sessions.
Recently I co-organised the conference Modernist Art Writing/ Writing Modernist Art, held at the University of Nottingham on 24-25 June 2019.
Past events I have organised include Women's Poetry Publication Workshop, a series of workshops encouraging women to engage with small press publishing in partnership with Small Press Library in Liverpool and Nottingham Women's Centre; Syndicate, a series of readings, performances, and lectures on the intersection of technology and poetry in collaboration with New Media Scotland; Women Translate Translation, a symposium and poetry night on the theme of women and translation at the Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh; and Outside-In/ Inside-Out, a festival and online resource of 'outside' and 'subterranean' poetics held in Glasgow supported by the AHRC Digital Transformations Fund
Teaching Summary
I am teaching on the following courses in the School of English:
Undergraduate
Academic Community
Poetry: Forms and Conventions
Advanced Writing Practice
Postgraduate
Learning to Read: Criticism for Creative Writers
Textualities: Defining, using, and making text
Writing Workshop: Poetry
Research Summary
My current creative-critical practice centres on the theme of contingency, the affective state of uncertainty and/or the condition of being subject to chance and change. I am interested in poetry's… read more
Recent Publications
MATSUMOTO, LILA, 2019. 'Evening fast out the window', a sequence of 10 poems. In: COOK, RORY, ed., Murmur 1. Monitor Books.
MATSUMOTO, LILA, 2019. In: MISTRETTA, GIUSEPPE, EDWIN STEVENS AND JESSICA HIGGINS, ed., A Plume Annual 2. Museums Press.
2019. Tide Quern, with Hannah Imlach: a poetry sculpture exploration of sustainable energy technologies . Peacock Gallery. 01/01/1900 00:00:00
Current Research
My current creative-critical practice centres on the theme of contingency, the affective state of uncertainty and/or the condition of being subject to chance and change. I am interested in poetry's various presentations of contingency: as individuated, ordinary-extraordinary moments (expectation, fear, grief, delight for example), as broader cultural milieu (climate crisis, migration), and as resonances of social and environmental inequities. I am particularly intrigued by the fictive possibilities of poetry and poetry's affinities to song and performance. My research is informed by feminist political ecology, object orientated writing, and affect theory.
Recent poetry has been published in Poetry London, Murmur (Monitor Books), Plume (Museums Press), The World Speaking Back (Boiler House Press), In Transit (Emma Press), and Wretched Strangers (Boiler House Press).
A selection of talks, workshops, and public lectures I have recently given include:
'Big Contemplative Utopia: solace and consolation in the writings of Denise Riley, Lisa Robertson, and Lyn Hejinian', Therapy and Experimental Poetry Symposium, Birkbeck, University of London (September 2019)
'Energy Objects In-Conversation: Hannah Imlach, Dr Lila Matsumoto & Dr Alexandra Campbell', a conversation on sculpture, poetry and energy cultures, Peacock Gallery, Aberdeen (July 2019)
'When the Sardine Can Looks Back: the role of material objects in poetics', workshop as part of Critical Poetics Reading Group, Nottingham Trent University (January 2019)
'Objects aren't topid: artwriting and feminist frameworks', University of Westminster School of English guest lecture (December 2018)
'Poetic Technologies: Exploring Hebridean renewable energy production through poetry- sculpture collaboration', Bath Spa University Intercultural Communication through Practice Research Group (November 2017)
'The Stitching of Her Wake: The Collaboration of Pamela Campion and Ian Hamilton Finlay', Little Fields, Long Horizons, Ian Hamilton Finlay Symposium, University of Edinburgh (July 2017)
'Happy Work: Poetics, Women's Labour, and Object oriented ontology', Land/Change Environmental Humanities Festival: Bath Spa University funded by British Academy (February 2017)