Dr Victoria I. Ekpo is an educator in Secondary English Education and until recently a senior lecturer at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk. Her research centres around questions of authenticity – the self and its ontology – and ways in which poetry provides space and opportunities for the critical processes and articulation of the self. Victoria has more than 23 years of expertise in teaching, curriculum development and teacher education. She is a co-convenor for the BERA Philosophy of Education special interest group (SIG). Victoria is also an award-winning writer and poet. Her recent publications include the poetry collection Ask for Wings that Fly by BookLeaf Publishing and ‘A Summer Prematurely Here’, published in the Menopause anthology by Arachne Press. Her paper on poetic inquiry won best paper at BERA 2022, in the Arts-Based Educational Research SIG.