This chapter introduces the idea of poetry as research, method, and methodology by defining poetry and Poetic Inquiry and making the argument for the power of poetry by addressing the following questions:
I begin with an autoethnographic account of my move to Poetic Inquiry in my research as a social scientist to position myself in the conversation and demonstrate reflexivity. Next, I define poetry and Poetic Inquiry, synthesize and discuss the scope of Poetic Inquiry, before moving to the goals and kinds of projects that are best suited for Poetic Inquiry. This includes framing Poetic Inquiry within feminist, queer, narrative, and identity theories to show how we can use poetry as research method, to represent research and the research process, and as praxis. I show that poetry as/in/for research offers scholars, teachers, and practitioners a means of doing, showing, and teaching embodiment and reflexivity, a way to refuse the mind-body dialectic, a form of ethnography and qualitative research, and a catalyst for social agitation and change.
Moving to Poetic Inquiry
Crank Up the Feminism
We declare feminist law
like shrews in heat
dial up the belligerent bass
from the front seat.
We do our hair in rosy rage
smear righteous red on our cheeks
as we pull on our combat best dress
the anti-patriarchy patrol in suffragette white.
The usual boys have no idea
what to do as we shank
the good girl in the mirror:
Youâre all lesbians now, America!
Our art bleeds down our legs
pools like rubies on piles of rubble
that canât be swept under rugs:
our rage refuses to ride shotgun.
We skip the protest and go
right for the throat, steal bologna
sandwiches from the Boy Scoutâs
tent yawping, You want to see rogue?
We snap the elastic in your pants,
show up five minutes late
with wet hair and chipped nails,
hit send without proofreading:
you can type your own template
as we crush the control panel
throttle up the appropriate volume
smashing the baby over your knees.
Faulkner, 2018a
I begin with a poem I wrote in response to Alex Ruth Bertulis-Fernandesâ art piece called Dial Down the Feminism, which consists of a photo of a control panel with a dial and two volume settingsâcomplicit in my own dehumanization and raging feministâwith the dial turned to raging feminist (Grasso, 2018). Alexâs art professor told her to dial down the feminism in her work, and Alex responded with feminist art. As I wrote my ekphrastic poetic response to Bertulis-Fernandesâ work, I thought of all of the ways Iâve been told in my life and career that âmy feminism has ruined me,â that my work is too critical, that I should be the âGood White Girl,â that I have destroyed othersâ altruistic visions of motherhood, and that I shouldnât put that âpoetry stuffâ on my vitae (Faulkner, 2016a). I am a poet, a feminist ethnographer, partner, and teacher who studies close relationships and uses Poetic Inquiry as a way to show the messy work of living a feminist life (Ahmed, 2017), being a feminist scholar and teacher, being a feminist partner and mother, and doing feminist relationship research. You can use poetry in your research, teaching, and praxis as a (YOU FILL IN THE BLANK) scholar. I show you my evolution from a traditional qualitative researcher to an Arts-Based Research Practitioner who uses poetry in teaching and as a feminist research method.
âPoetic Inquiry is the use of poetry crafted from research endeavors, either before a project analysis, as a project analysis, and/or poetry that is part of or that constitutes an entire research projectâ (Faulkner, 2017a, p. 210). I argue that Poetic Inquiry can be a qualitative and feminist research methodology because of what poetry can do and be.
I began using poetry in my work as a scholar who studies close relationships when I needed to talk about identity and communication in a more nuanced fashion and wanted to describe the physicality and emotionality of doing research (Faulkner, 2005). I have written poetry since childhood and often write poems when I am trying to make sense of difficult life experiences such as cancer and motherhood (e.g., Faulkner, 2014a, 2017c). Shortly after finishing my PhD when I was engaged in a project on LGBTQ Jewish identity (Faulkner and Hecht, 2011), I merged my poetry practice with my social science training by presenting the narrative research as poetry (Faulkner, 2006). âWriting poetry helped me recover from my training in graduate school and the numbing realities of academic writing. It helped me reclaim creativity and its rhythmsâ (Faulkner, 2014a, p. xiii). I felt that the twists and turns in the research study, showing my reflexivity as a feminist scholar, and the bodily experience of doing and being a feminist ethnographer were best presented as poetry. I wrote the methodâs section of the work (Faulkner, 2005) as a series of six poems to show the research story (L. Richardson, 1997a), my subjective emotional processes, difficulties of identities in fieldwork, and the challenges of conducting interviews while being reflexive and conscientious. In the poems, I was able to highlight how identities as researcher and participant were negotiated in situ. For example, the following poem about a participantâs reaction to me as a researcher is a story a traditional method section couldnât tell:
Iâm Not What Lisa Expected
no blonde bunned hair
like the researcher in her mind,
like my second grade teacher, glasses,
but blue and stylish and young.
Iâm 31 and old enough to teach,
ask others about their identities,
though I have scant lines on face and vita,
wear shirts without collars.
I talk as a friendâexcept those questions
about being gay and Jewishâ
as I shift, catch words with my recorder,
camo cargo pants belie my worry with uniform.
Another participant claims I walk lesbian-
like, confident stride and spiky cut hair,
into her usual diner on 7th Avenue where
we eat rice pudding like family. She knew
who I was without my descriptionâ
5 feet 5 inches, red hair, short and sapphire spectaclesâ
How do I tell them that I live and flirt
and fight with a man now, that my
ex-girlfriend calls me semi-straight
and semi-gay and too interested in labels?
Fau...
