Redell Olsen

Redell Olsen (born in 1971) is a British poet, performance artist and academic. Her work incorporated traditional books alongside images, texts for performance, films, and site specific work. Olsen describes her work as involving avant-garde modernist and contemporary poetics, feminist theory and writing practice, Language Writing, ecology and environmental literatures, and performance.^[1]

Life and Work

Olsen studied English Literature at Cambridge University before subsequently completing an MA in Fine Art. She completed her PhD on 'Contemporary Poetics and Innovative Women's Writing' at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2002, and went on to teach on the Performance Writing programme at Dartington University alongside Caroline Bergvall. She subsequently moved to a Lectureship at Royal Holloway, University of London,^[2] where she is now Professor in Poetry and Poetics, teaching undergraduate English Students and postgraduate Creative Writing students. With Robert Gavin Hampson, she founded and ran the MA in Poetic Practice at Royal Holloway from 2003-13. Starting in 2014 this was absorbed into the MA Creative Writing course as the Poetic Practice Pathway.^[3] The course is now taught by Olsen, Hampson, and Will Montgomery. She was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow at the University of Cambridge from 2013-14.

Between 2006 and 2010 Olsen was the editor of the online journal How(2).^[4] With Will Montgomery and Kristen Kreider she runs POLYply, a cross-media and intermedia performance series, that incorporated Poetry, art, music, and film.^[5]

Books of Poetry

• Film Poems (Les Figues, 2014)^[6]
• Punk Faun: A Bar Rock Pastel (Subpress, 2012)
• Secure Portable Space (Reality Street, 2004)
• Here are My Instructions [with Susan Johanknecht] (Gefn Press, 2004)
• Star Furnishing (Toiling Elves, 2004)
• Attention (Lounge, 2003)
• unmarkedforsearch (allsingingalldancing, 2001)
• Book of The Fur (Rem Press, 2000)
• Book of the Insect (allsingingalldancing, 1999)
• Quid Pro Quo (allsingingallDancing, 1998)

Further reading

• Marcella Durand, Necessary Space: a review of secure portable space in Jacket
• Allen Fisher, "Minimaus: in response to cultural malaise" in Pores
• Redell Olsen, "Images After Errors/Errors After Images: Joan Retallack"
• Redell Olsen, "Postmodern poetry in Britain" in The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry, ed. Neil Corcoran (2008)
• Will Rowe in conversation with Redell Olsen in Pores
• Lucy Sheerman in conversation with Redell Olsen in How(2)

See also

• British Poetry Revival

References