De-Shelving Woolf: A Poetic Response to the Life and Work of Virginia

In this book of poetry, I present Virginia Woolf’s life and work through a variety of perspectives. Central to the project is the voice of a character that I created, Violet, a reader of Virginia Woolf’s work. Violet is a woman in her mid-twenties struggling with a resurgence of past mental illness and coming to terms with her sexuality. The voices she hears and interacts with are all colored by what matters most to her. As she reads Virginia Woolf’s works and biographical history, she interacts with the people who knew her best and the characters that she created. In the collection, there are poems from the perspective of the important figures of Virginia Woolf’s life, such as her husband, sister and lover. There are others from the perspective of characters from her novels Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, as these are the books that Violet reads and interacts with. Both sets of voices change Violet’s perspective, and ultimately the course of her life. In this collection, I focus on the aspects of Virginia Woolf’s life and writing— sexuality, mental illness and feminism—that most attract my original character to her work