In this episode, I sit down with poet, essayist and academic Natalie Rose Dyer to explore the ideas behind her groundbreaking book The Menstrual Imaginary in Literature: Notes on a Wild Fluidity.

We begin with Natalie's own journey into this work - what drew her to menstruation as a site of philosophical, political, and creative inquiry, and how her doctoral research evolved into a call to reimagine menstrual experience beyond pathology, shame, and silence.

Together we explore the menstrual imaginary as a "wild zone of unacknowledged creativity," discussing menstrual knowledge, embodied knowing, feminist writing, and the cyclical body as a source of softly rebellious wisdom. We linger with writers such as Hélène Cixous and the tradition of women writing through and from the body, tracing how poetry, blood, creativity, and sexual difference intertwine.

The conversation then turns toward Natalie's more recent work and the posthuman horizons emerging from her thinking. We explore what becomes possible when menstruation is understood not only as a bodily process, but as a site of connection with matter, ecosystems, non-human life, and new forms of becoming.

A rich conversation on embodiment, creativity, feminist resistance, wildness, and the futures that become imaginable when we learn to listen to the wisdom of cyclical life.

More about Natalie: Natalie teaches into the Creative Writing Program at The University of Melbourne where she is Honorary Research Fellow. Natalie is the recipient of The Peter Steele Poetry Award 2021, and was highly commended for the 2024 Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. She is presently completing work on her first collection towards publication this year. Natalie’s poetry is widely published in literary journals including Meanjin Quarterly, Australian Poetry and Cordite Poetry Review. Her book Notes on a Wild Fluidity was published with Palgrave (2020). Nothing But a Fine Nerve Meter; New Maps at the Planetary Turn was recently published (2025) with Revolutionaries Press. Natalie issues a call to re-write ourselves as planetary players, tethered to place yet attuned to fault lines of poetic rupture, care, and resistance.

Enjoy!

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💛 The Soft Rebellion Podcast is created and hosted by Flurina Dominique Thali. I love hearing from you. To contact me, email softrebellion@flurinathali.com.

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Find out more about Natalia:

- Follow her on Instagram @natalierosedyer

- Visit her webpage here.

Credits:

- Intro/outro music – ‘Hymn for Jim’ by Aspyrian: Robin Porter –saxophone, Jack Gillen – guitar, Matt Parkinson – drums, composed by Robin Porter, listen to the full track here, graphic: Annina Thali, for more information click here