Dr Daniel John Pilkington is an academic researcher in poetry and poetics.

His doctoral research examined the relationship between poetry and magic in the context of contemporary US poetry. He is the author of the academic monograph Magic and the Occult in Contemporary Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan 2026), the first scholarly study dedicated to contemporary magical poetries.

Magic and the Occult in Contemporary Poetry investigates the relationship between poetry and magic within contemporary poetics. Tracing the history of magical poetics and occult poetry to the present, it asks what possibilities remain for a magical or occult poetics today, particularly within contemporary US poetry. The book argues that magical and occult poetics offer a vital counterpoint to dominant poetic trends, defining such practices through a willingness to entertain magical worldviews as creative frameworks or to experiment with techniques derived from magical and occult traditions. It explores the figure of the poet as magician, the conception of language as inherently magical, and the implications of adopting magical perspectives in poetic practice, while examining creative methods such as spellcraft, trance, divination, and ritual in the composition of poetry.

Daniel’s current research interests include the intersections between literature and visual art, intermedia text-based artworks, the history of Australian visual and concrete poetries, the ongoing significance of descents into the underworld in contemporary poetry, and the broader relationship between poetry and spirituality.

Essays and Interviews:

Occult Poetics & (Soma)tic Rituals: an interview with CAConrad
An Interview with Ariana Reines
An Expanded Notion of ‘Kerning’: an exhibition essay on Australian text-based art