Jessica Madison Pískatá

My PhD project explores the intersection of poetic practice and geological socialities in the Dariganga Volcanic Field, located on the eastern steppe of Mongolia. By working with poets, professional poetry readers, local scholars of literature, and lay poetry enthusiasts, my research considers poetry as a tool that allows those who engage with it to subvert the epistemic categories that divide the material and immaterial world and its living and non-living beings.

A key aspect of my research explores how people use poetry to create enlivened and mutually collaborative relationships with non-living mineral landscapes, particularly in the context of heightened material extraction across Mongolia. I’ve also been working on Mongolian to English translations of contemporary Dariganga poetry, most recently Ochirbatyn Dashbalbar’s Grass Trilogy.