The aim of this thesis, written to satisfy the degree requirements for a PhD by
publication, is to present the theoretical framework, methodologies, findings and impact of my 25
years of research (books, essays, articles, performances and poems published in literary magazines)
in order to demonstrate its originality and contribution to the knowledge and practice of
Ecosomatic poetics. Through creative and scholarly outputs, my research over the past 25 years has
been to demonstrate how language is an embodied field of somatic awareness. Drawing on somatic
phenomenology, psychosomatic psychology, and conceptual poetics, this thesis presents the key
findings of the research including insights into relationships between poetic language and the
innate healing capacities of the bodymind system as it relates to corresponding ecologies. Although
it is my hope that this thesis reveals ways that Ecosomatic poetics might contribute to larger
methods and philosophies surrounding mental health and somatic healing modalities, I am not
attempting to prove or quantify any medical claim or posit any miracle cure in this document. As
poet Tyrone Williams writes in his generous impact statement, “Kristin’s writings are the at the
forefront of current social, cultural and political movements driven by an understanding that the
very notion of the human ‘body,’ and perhaps the human itself, must be rethought, reconceptualized,
beyond and above Cartesian dualisms.” Indeed, this thesis and corresponding bibliography posits a
poetics of reading and writing in which language itself is conceptualized as medicine, embodiment,
and energy.