Linguistic auto-poetry: An auto-theoretical approach to the multilingual subject’s self/ves and relationship to language(s)

This paper will explore the contribution auto-reflexive poetry can make to research on multilingualism in literature, or “heterolingualism”, and how heterolingual poetry can be a literary space for expressing the multilingual self/ves. In this regard, I wish to propose a case study of my autobiographical-heterolingual poetry collection, ORCHESTR A.E (AB publishing 2023). This auto-theoretical work addresses my identity as a bilingual person and provides insights into my creative process. My code-switching is motivated not only by lexical differences, but also by how I relate to English and French. I experience languages as more than communicative tools: they are sensory and aesthetic phenomena which elicit various emotions. I am currently working on new bilingual poetry dealing precisely with how I express my feelings and emotions differently in each language. As part of my PhD (The polyglot writer: what multilingual texts reveal about writers’ emotional attachment to the languages they speak), I will draw on existing work from authors such as Suchet and Grutman, Gümüşay and Pavlenko to specify the way polyglot writers identify with the languages they speak, and the cognitive processes behind the choice of language(s) they use in writing. Focusing on auto-reflexive work bears the larger question of whether heterolingual poetry has an inherently autobiographical dimension, a question I aspire to elaborate on as my research advances.