“Dream Child”: The Role of Poetic Dialogue in Homeless Research

Abstract

This article represents the usefulness of artistic approaches to social science research. Following a brief introduction to the research context—an inquiry into the life experiences of homeless youth travelers—the author presents a poem that interweaves snippets of conversations audiotaped during the inquiry with lines of poetry that she has written in her reflections about the research process and with poetry written by a 17-year-old female traveler. She presents the poem as an example of the way that poetry has been used throughout this research project both to record research findings and to generate further conversations with research participants.