Poetry in the Mind

'Great poetry places on-stage the powers and limits of human thought. Time and space, intertextuality, presence and absence, performance, metaphor: Joanna Gavins investigates masterfully what the poetry of our day teaches us about the human mind.'
Mark Turner, Case Western Reserve University
Poetry in the Mind is the first book-length cognitive analysis focused entirely on 21st century poetic texts and their conceptual effects. Addressing central poetic notions or features of poetic style from an innovative cognitive perspective, the book sheds new light on established ideas about poetic creativity and language. It acts as a showcase both for cutting-edge cognitive research and for the linguistic creativity of renowned poets such as Simon Armitage, Jo Bell, John Burnside, Sinéad Morrissey, Alice Oswald, and Kate Tempest.
Joanna Gavins is Chair in English Language and Literature at the University of Sheffield, where she teaches courses in cognitive linguistics and stylistics.