earth's eye

'Earth's eye' appears in the poetry of Thoreau, GM Hopkins, and Alice Oswald, as a motif for the human assumption of nature's benevolence and capacity to act as a mirror for the self - in the case of poetry, the lyric 'I'. Oswald's land -scapes and -forms invoke but also trouble this Romantic response to nature. I think of 'earth's eye' in this sense as mode of collapsing the poetic gaze in on itself, and of scrutinising the way in which texts engage with traditions of representing space and landscape.

Niamh Downing is a doctoral candidate in English at University of Exeter, UK. Her primary interest is in the function of space and time in contemporary literature written in English, and her thesis examines excavatory tropes in the poetry of Geoffrey Hill, Ciaran Carson, Geraldine Monk, Peter Riley, Alice Oswald (due for completion in 2012).

Other research interests include: the role of archives in scholarly and creative practice; digital poetry and poetics; temporality and spatiality in digital media; politics and philosophies of of time.

Niamh also teaches on the English and Writing undergraduate awards at University College Falmouth, and is a seminar tutor at University of Exeter.

Education/Awards:
- 2009 European Social Fund PhD Studentship (UoE)
- 2008 MA in English, University of Exeter (distinction and Dean's Commendation)
- 2008 Full-Fee Masters Scholarship (UoE)
- 2006 BA (Hons) English with Media Studies, University College Falmouth (1st)