Assoc ProfessorNerys Williams

I joined the school in 2003. My field of research is contemporary poetry in English, with a focus on American Poetry and Poetics. The core of my research continues to explore the practice of twentieth and twenty-first century poetries. I have published extensively on experimental late twentieth and twenty-first century American poetic practice in journals and books. I also have a longstanding interest in modern and contemporary Welsh poetry in English. Early research examines the legacy of the poetics of a loose collective 'language writing' on recent poetry and how we might conceptualise a 21st Century lyricism.

During my time at UCD I have researched academic and creative projects in the US and Europe. I was a Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley during 2007.  In 2017 I was awarded a Government of Wales  residency at Passa Porta: International House of Literature, Brussels. I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area as a visiting scholar at  UC Berkeley in 2019-20  and  at San Jose State University in 2023.

First Generation Faculty

SINGLE AUTHORED BOOKS

Contemporary Poetry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011)
Reading Error: The Lyric and Contemporary Poetry (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007)

Poets on Air: Producing Poetry at the BBC 1950-66 (Palgrave- Macmillan) forthcoming  

Scholarly Edition  (introduction notes and appendix)
Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood Penguin Classics  (London: December 2025)

Poetry Volumes

Republic (Bridgend: Seren, 2023)
Cabaret (New Dublin Press, 2017)
Sound Archive (Bridgend: Seren, 2011)



Articles and chapters examine how contemporary poetry represents the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; the poetry of post devolutionary Wales and its relationship to a culture of militarism and a reading of broadcast poetics in the BBC features programmes of Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath and Langston Hughes.

I have become increasingly interested in the dynamic between poetic performance and radio. My next contracted monograph 'Poets on Air' considers the collaborative relationship between poets and producers at the BBC's Third Programme. In particular I am exploring a poetics of listening. Poets featured in the monograph include Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Rosemary Tonks, Basil Bunting, Dylan Thomas, Laura Riding, David Gascoyne, Bob Cobbing, and Anne Waldman. The BBC producers are D. G. Bridson, Douglas Cleverdon and George MacBeth. The collection also includes interviews with contemporary radio producers

Before becoming a faculty member at UCD, my first full time academic post was a lectureship at Trinity College, Dublin. Prior to completing my PhD, I lectured and coordinated seminars at the University of Sussex and Southampton University. I have also worked outside of academia in fields ranging from psychiatric nursing to BBC Wales.

I am an established poet, My first volume Sound Archive (2011) won the Strong first volume prize and was nominated for Forward first volume award. My third volume, Republic (seren, 2023) is a collection of prose poetry investigating relationship between bilingualism, community, political action and post punk music. It also playfully promotes itself as an "anti-memoir".