Morgan Bach

Morgan is examining the book length lyric essay and its utility for situating personal experience in the broader sociohistorical context.

Commenced 2024

Morgan is a writer from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, with two books of poetry published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, Some of Us Eat the Seeds (2015) and Middle Youth (2023). In 2014, with Hannah Mettner and Sugar Magnolia Wilson, she co-founded the online poetry journal Sweet Mammalian. In this PhD project, Morgan is moving into the world of non-fiction through the hybrid genre of the lyric essay.

Morgan says: 'My PhD research will focus on book length examples of the hybrid lyric essay form that utilises elements of both poetry and the personal essay. I am interested in how these hybrid works use non-narrative forms that interweave personal experience within a context of sociological or historical reflection. This feeds into the preoccupations of my creative thesis, these being: the culture of the last two decades of the 20th century; a reassessment of identity with a queer lens in early middle age; the radical changes of the natural world; and the social readjustments and reckoning necessary for living in the present moment of crisis.'

Read more:

• Morgan's website  (with work published online collated here)
• Te Herenga Waka Press author page
• Sweet Mammalian