Dr Patrick Errington

Lecturer & UKRI Future Leaders Fellow

Biography

Background

Dr Patrick James Errington is a Canadian-born poet, critic, translator, and multidisciplinary researcher. Patrick is the author of three collections of poems, Glean (ignitionpress, 2018), Field Studies (Clutag Press, 2019), and The Swailing (McGill-Queens University Press, 2023), which was shortlisted for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year in the Scottish National Book Awards, and won the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize. His poetry has also won or been commended for a number of international prizes, including The National Poetry Competition, the Wigtown Poetry Competition, The London Magazine Poetry Competition, the McLellan Poetry Prize, the Plough Prize, and the Poetry International Prize, as well as the Callan Gordon Award from the Scottish Book Trust and the Bronwen Wallace Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada. Meanwhile his French translation of PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphey’s The Hollow of the Hand was released by Éditions l’Âge d’Homme in 2017. Further translations, of French-Algerian poet Hamid Tibouchi and the French-Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran's Notebooks 1957–1972, are forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books and New York Review Books respectively. In addition, Patrick has worked in an editorial capacity for several publications, including The New Yorker, The Columbia Journal, and The Scores, and his critical writing appears in magazines like Poetry London and The Compass.

As a researcher, Patrick's work is distinctly transdisciplinary and collaborative, blending literary theory, cognitive psychology, phenomenological, ecological, and linguistic philosophy, translation theory, and creative writing to explore other-than-critical modes of literary response, their effects on the reading process, and their potential to expand humanities study and impact mental health.

In 2025, he was awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (2025–2029) for his project 'Rewriting Wor(l)ds', a transdisciplinary, participatory, research-practice partnered research programme investigating how creative engagement can enhance young people's poetry engagement and support longterm mental wellbeing.

A graduate of the University of Alberta (BA, 2011), where he studied under Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Patrick also holds an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in writing and literary translation from Columbia University (2015) and a PhD for his research in literary theory and enactive cognition under Profs John Burnside and Don Paterson at the University of St Andrews (2018). He has taught literature, literary theory, and creative writing at Columbia University and at numerous universities around Scotland, including Edinburgh Napier, the University of Dundee, the University of St Andrews, and the University of Edinburgh. 

(Photo credit: Laura Meek)

Qualifications

PhD, Poetic Theory, University of St Andrews

MFA, Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Columbia University

BA, English Literature, University of Alberta

Responsibilities & affiliations

Project Lead, Rewriting Wor(l)ds (UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship)

Co-Director, the Literacy Lab

Affiliate, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)

Secondment, Edinburgh Futures Institute

 

Undergraduate teaching

Creative Writing (prose and poetry); English and Scottish literatures and literary studies.

Postgraduate teaching

MSc Creative Writing; MSc Literature and Modernity; MSc Translation Studies

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Areas of interest for supervision

Whilst I am not currently able to take on additional PhD researchers, when available, my supervisory interests include creative writing and literary studies doctoral projects relating to any of my current research areas. I am particularly interested in projects that explore unique forms of knowledge-making, and work that seeks to cross traditional disciplinary or methodological boundaries. 

Current PhD students supervised

Liam-Lucille Wright

Ali Graham

Xu Guo

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Research summary

My current research look to theorise, evaluate, and put into practice other-than-analytic modes of knowledge production and readerly engagement with modern/contemporary literary texts. This work is based on a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach that draws from and integrates literary theory, cognitive psychology, linguistics, mental health psychology phenomenological, ecological, and linguistic philosophies, creative writing, and translation theory, as well as my own creative practices. Projects I have led had received over £2 million in research funding from organisations such as UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the Wellcome Trust, Carnegie Trust, and the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities (SGSAH).

Current research interests

Enactive/embodied cognition; Other-than-critical knowledge-making; Literary metaphor comprehension; Affect theory and narrative; Gestalt theory; Postcritique; Mental health psychology; Ecological theory; Fragmentary narrative forms; Contemporary ecological poetry; Confessional poetry; Erasure, blackout, centos and other forms of responsive writing; Translation

Knowledge exchange

I frequently collaborate – and actively seek new collaborations – with external (non-university) partners, including third-sector organisations like the National Literacy Trust, The Poetry Society, the Scottish Book Trust, the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS), literary and arts festivals like Push the Boat Out, StAnza, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and with tech industry organisations such as Playable Technology. 

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

I am currently the Lead Researcher on a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project 'Rewriting Wor(l)ds', a transdisciplinary, participatory, research-practice partnered research programme investigating how other-than-critical activities can enhance young people's poetry engagement and support mental wellbeing. This builds on several research endeavours exploring the psychology, neuroscience, sociological, and literary theoretical effects of creative task sets on reading. Together, my various research projects have received over £2 million in research funding from organisations such as UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the Wellcome Trust, the Carnegie Trust, and the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities.

In addition, I am currently working on a translation of philosopher E.M. Cioran's nonfiction Notebooks for New York Review Books, a translation of French-Algerian artist and poet Hamid Tibouchi's poetry, as well as a new poetry manuscript and a trade monograph on the role of other-than-critical knowledge-making practices for understanding literature.

Current project grants

UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship: 'Rewriting wor(l)ds: A transdisciplinary and participatory investigation of how poetry supports young people’s literacy engagement and wellbeing' (2025–2032).
Research Lead: Patrick Errington; research co-Leads: Prof. Sarah McGeown (Education) & Prof. Dan Mirman (Psychology)
Project Partners: Playable Technology, National Literacy Trust, The Poetry Society, The National Poetry Centre, Scottish Book Trust, Scottish Poetry Library, StAnza Poetry Festival, Push the Boat Out Poetry Festival

Past project grants

Wellcome Trust Institutional Translation Partnership Award Accelerator Award: 'Methods, materials, and prototype development of Re:Writer poetry app to support young peoples' literacy and mental wellbeing'
PI: Patrick Errington; Co-Is: Dan Mirman, Sarah McGeown; RA: Simon Boyle
Project Partners: The Poetry Society, The National Literacy Trust, Playable Technology

Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant: 'A multidisciplinary examination of the effect of reading tasks on poetic language processing'
PI: Patrick Errington; Co-I: Dan Mirman; RA: Nicola Burns

Wellcome Trust Mental Health Data Prize, Sustainability Phase: 'Developing a counterfactual analysis digital tool to illuminate active ingredients in mental health’
PI Aja Murray; Co-Is Patrick Errington, Dan Mirman, Josiah King, Ingrid Obsuth, Marie Allitt; RAs: Helen Wright, Yi Yang, Zhuoni Xiao, Xinxin Zhu.

Wellcome Trust iTPA Translation Innovation Competition: ‘Engaging users in the development of a creative ‘re-reading’ intervention for adolescents with anxiety and depression’
PI: Patrick Errington; Co-Is: Aja Murray, Dan Mirman, Marie Allitt, Ingrid Obsuth

Wellcome Trust Mental Health Data Prize, Prototyping Phase: 'Developing a counterfactual analysis digital tool to illuminate active ingredients in mental health’
PI Aja Murray; Co-Is Patrick Errington, Dan Mirman, Josiah King, Ingrid Obsuth, Marie Allitt; RAs: Helen Wright, Yi Yang, Zhuoni Xiao, Xinxin Zhu.

CAHSS Challenge Investment Fund: 'Difficulty and Pleasure in the Comprehension of Variously Novel, Verb-Based Metaphors Using fNIRS'
PI: Patrick Errington; Co-I: Dan Mirman; RA: Melissa Thye

Wellcome Trust Mental Health Data Prize, Discovery Phase: 'Developing a counterfactual tool to illuminate the role of reading for pleasure in mental health'
PI: Aja Murray; Co-Is: Patrick Errington, Marie Allitt, Ingrid Obsuth, Dan Mirman; RAs: Helen Wright, Yi Yang, Zhuoni Xiao, Xinxin Zhu.

CAHSS Research Adaptation Fund: 'Difficult Language: Assessing Difficulty and Pleasure in the Comprehension of Literary Metaphors'
Co-I: Dan Mirman; RA: Melissa Thye

Papers delivered

'No such thing as neutral: How anticipated reading tasks shape the ‘everyday’ reading of poetry' | Everyday Reading of Literature | University of Zagreb, Croatia | September 2025

‘“Getting” poetry: How reading tasks modulate the processing and aesthetic experience of poems‘ | Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities, University of Messina | Messina, Italy | May 2025

'Effects of ease of comprehension and individual differences on the pleasure experienced while reading novelized verb-based metaphors’ (poster) | Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society | Rotterdam, The Netherlands | July 2024

‘Exploring the Effects of Reader Mindset on the Aesthetic Experience of Poetry’ | Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities 2024 | Catania, Italy | June 2024

‘The phenomenological and neural impact of reader response ‘task sets’ on poetic language processing’ | Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities 2023 | University of Warsaw, Poland | July 2023.

'The Sweet Spot: The "Optimal" Defamiliarisation of Verb-Based Metaphors' | Annual British Society of Literature and Science Conference, University of Manchester | April 2022

'Useless Literature: Responding-To and Responding-With' | Uses of Literature Conference, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark / Online | November 2021

'Beyond Critical: A Cognitive Case for Responding with Poetry’ | Cognitive Futures in the Humanities, University of Kent, Canterbury | July 2018

‘In Kind: How a Co-Creative Response Encourages an Enactive Reading of Poetry’ | Educational Role of Language III, University of Educational Sciences, Vilnius | June 2018

‘The Art of Translation’ | 24th International Conference for Europeanists: Sustainability & Transformation, Council for European Studies and University of Glasgow, Glasgow | July 2017

‘Immersive Poetics: Creative Response Writing as an Enactive Approach to Poetry’ | English Shared Futures, University of Newcastle, Newcastle | July 2017

‘Body in Mind: Poetry and the Re-Embodiment of Abstract Thought’ | Contemporary Poetry: Thinking & Feeling, University of Plymouth | May 2016

In the press

 

Media Articles:

(Re)Writing a Way into Poems: New Research on Young People’s Poetry Literacy and Wellbeing (The Poetry Society Blog) (https://poetrysociety.org.uk/education/poetry-and-wellbeing/rewriter/)

 

News/Interviews:

Los Angeles Review: 'The Sacred Fire of Poetry in Patrick Errington’s The Swailing' by Clelia Albano & 'I hold you the way the sky holds rain: A Conversation with Patrick James Errington about the swailing' by Tiffany Troy (https://losangelesreview.org/the-swailing-by-patrick-james-errington-review-by-clelia-albano-and-interview-by-tiffany-troy/)

Irish Times: 'Patrick James Errington wins Pollard Poetry Prize', by Martin Doyle (https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/04/11/patrick-james-errington-wins-pollard-poetry-prize-lance-larsen-wins-moth-poetry-prize/)

Forbes: '"Not Grief, Safekeeping": Patrick James Errington’s Poetry Collection, The Swailing", by Matthew Carey Salyer (https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsalyer/2023/08/16/not-grief-safekeeping-patrick-james-erringtons-poetry-collection-the-swailing/)

Poetry Foundation: 'The Swailing', reviewed by Rebecca Morgan Frank (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/books/reviews/159856/the-swailing)

University of Edinburgh, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures: 'Lifting the Veil on Poetry': An Interview with Patrick James Errington

Columbia University School of the Arts: Interview with Patrick James Errington, RBC Bronwen Wallace Finalist, Winner

CBC 'Patrick James Errington and Teya Hollier win $10K RBC Bronwen Wallace Award'

Quill & Quire 'Patrick James Errington, Teya Hollier win 2022 Bronwen Wallace Award

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