Poetry and Photography

Michael Grodesky, PhD

“What is documented, at last, is not the thing itself but the way of seeing—the object infused with the subject. The eye moving over the world like a lover. And so the boundary between self and world is elided, a bit, softened.”

—Mark Doty from Still Life with Oysters and Lemon

Michael Grodesky is a poet, writer and photographer. His creative work is grounded in the aesthetics of minimalism, linearity, and negative space.

Recently, he has combined his training in the behavioral sciences with his love of poetry and his expertise in qualitative research to embark on an interesting qualitative research study known as Discourse Tracing.

“As a gay man, I have long been interested in the aspects of affirmation and assimilation as they relate to the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals and their communities. Particularly, I am interested in how these discursive elements have evolved over the past decades as they are expressed in the writings of gay poets.”