Jessica L Wilkinson's first book Marionette: a biography of Miss Marion Davies was published by Vagabond in 2012 and shortlisted for the 2014 Kenneth Slessor Award. Her second, Suite for Percy Grainger: a biography is forthcoming in late 2014. She is the founding editor of Rabbit: a journal for non-fiction poetry and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at RMIT University. She won the 2014 Peter Porter Poetry Prize.

Beyond Facts and Accuracies

Long Form Poetry as Biographical Method

This paper addresses long form poetry as non-fiction medium—specifically as biographical medium—discussing examples by writers such as Jordie Albiston, Susan Howe and Lyn Hejinian, to consider the diversity of ways in which poets are writing/documenting the lives of historical figures. My aim is to demonstrate how poetic biographies can extend our representations of these characters into new dimensions, using poetic play—the line, metaphor, frisson, juxtaposition, space and rhythm—to convey aspects of character and experience in innovative and exciting ways. I propose an extension of non-fiction writing into the poetic form as a way towards addressing historical inaccuracies and aporias, thus not only opening a space for the representation of marginal voices, but offering new frameworks for life writing.