(Re)Forming Research Poetry

Abstract

In this article, the authors reflect on an experience with research representation in which they deliberately engage to push their notion of what research poetry might be. The authors discuss the experience that began when they examined approximately 50 in-depth narrative interviews of international doctoral students’ graduate school experiences. The article discusses a traditional thematic qualitative research article that was written and published on the basis of data derived from the aforementioned narrative interviews. In the next part of the experience, the one specific to this article, the authors compose three research poems of varying styles—free form, elegy, and haiku. The authors challenge their current research, representation, and poetic understandings by comparing and contrasting the traditional qualitative article to the nontraditional poetic representations. The final step of this process includes the authors’ methodological reflections on poetic representations in the areas of accessibility, power of compressed form, and writing ability or good enough research poetry.