‘Lawnmower Poetry and the Poetry of Lawnmowers’, published 17th May in Critical Quarterly, is a new study by Francesca Gardner, a PhD student and Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholar at St Catharine’s College. This week media outlets including The Times, The i Paper, the BBC, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, ITV News, and ITV Anglia have featured her research.

The study traces lawnmower poetry back to the early modern mower poetry of Andrew Marvell, suggesting that poets use the machine to explore childhood, masculinity, violence, addiction, mortality, and much more. In a time of eco-crisis and with the rising popularity of ‘No Mow May’, it also considers the place and status of the lawnmower today. Read more on the University of Cambridge website.