Will graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with a degree in English in 1987. After a period outside academia, he took the Literature, Culture, Modernity MA at Queen Mary, University of London, receiving the Marjorie Thompson award for outstanding academic achievement in 1999. He remained at Queen Mary for his AHRB-funded PhD, which was devoted to the writing of contemporary American poet Susan Howe. He subsequently taught poetry, modernist literature and critical theory at Queen Mary and at Southampton University. In January 2007 he joined Royal Holloway as RCUK research fellow in contemporary poetry and poetics. He is director of the department’s Poetics Research Centre and a co-organizer of that group’s POLYply reading and performance series.
Recent publications include The Poetry of Susan Howe (Palgrave, 2010) and the essay collection Frank O’Hara Now (Liverpool UP, 2010), which he co-edited with Robert Hampson. He is currently working on a study of short form in modernist and contemporary US poetry, and co-editing an edited collection on field recordings and literature. Will also works with audio, making field recordings, sound art and music.
Follow this LINK to hear some of his sound work, including pieces with Other Room reader Carol Watts.