Abstract
In September 2016, an international group of young scholars came together at the University of
Duisburg-Essen, Germany, to discuss their research projects in the context of the workshop
Voices from the Margins: Societal Change and the Environment in Poetry. Not yet entirely
expecting how turbulent the next few months would be in terms of poetry and protest, but very
much aware of the increasing relevance of both fields and the hybrids they engender, we wanted
to provide a platform to discuss poets who engage with social and environmental issues. The
main focus here were poets who write from a position of marginality, be that geographically,
socially, economically or on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation. The participating
scholars were also interested in the margins of canonization and therefore presented the works of
authors who receive less attention due to their location, the issues they discuss or the media of
publication they choose. Intersections of these different facets of the term ‘margin’ were central
to the workshop and shape our understanding of the concept. As editors, we believe that poetry
written from marginalised perspectives creates a collage of defining moments, thoughts and
feelings, and that those add to the visibility of key issues and changes in contemporary societies.
Following Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffin, we are particularly interested in ‘discourses of
marginality … [that] intersect in a view of reality which supersedes the geometric distinction of
centre and margin and replaces it with a sense of the complex, interweaving, and syncretic
accretion of experience.’ This is the premise under which the selected papers in this special
issue investigate contemporary poetic responses to societal and environmental transformations.