Dr. Roxanne T. Bodsworth is a feminist poet writing from the Irish tradition in a contemporary style. She achieved her PhD in 2020 by creative project with a prosimetric reconstruction of the female journey in Irish mythology. Roxanne uses a practice-led methodology with poetry as the primary research tool to excavate, explore and express the feminine experience, opening up new possibilities for understanding traditional stories and their relevance as part of the Irish cultural collection and for current literature. Roxanne advocates for the importance of creative practice-led research in academia that provides new insights, new ways of looking at the old, new ways of creating.
Roxanne's research includes the use of language to defamiliarize traditional stories; how the female hero's journey differs to that of the male; and structural techniques for foregrounding the feminine. Her publications include peer-reviewed articles in Mythlore and Prophecy, Fate and Memory in the Early Medieval Celtic World. She received a commendation in the 2022 Melbourne Poets' Union Prize and was a finalist in the Victorian Poetry Slam in 2020. Her poetry has been published in several journals under the pen-name of 'Therese', including The Incompleteness Book II, Lockdown Poetry, Poetrix, SideWAlk, Spindrift, Hobo, Tamba, and Offset. Her second verse novel, Unforgiven, was released in February this year.
Areas of expertise: Poetry. Irish literature and mythology. Yeats. Feminist writing. The Female Hero's Journey.
