The author introduces ars spirituality as a reflexive practice in poetic inquiry. She examines Faulkner’s ars poetica and ars criteria and contends their focus on the craft, aesthetics, and evaluation of research poetry do not account for the ways in which spirituality influences Black women’s research poetry and poetic inquiry. The author argues Black women’s poetry—whether crafted from/for personal experiences, historical research, or transcripts—is born of the spirit and conceptualizes ars spirituality using the works of Audre Lorde and Cynthia Dillard. Three guiding principles of ars spirituality are discussed and an ars spirituality example is provided.
AllenP. B. (2005). Art is a spiritual path: Engaging the sacred through the practice of art and writing. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.
2.
BrandD. (2017). An ars poetica from the blue clerk. The Black Scholar, 47, 58-77. doi:10.1080/00064246.2017.1264860
3.
BryantS. F. (1992). Speaking into being: Spirituality and community in African American and Anglo-American women’s writing (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. (Order No. 9312659)
4.
CarterT. A. (2009). Powers divine: Spiritual autobiography and Black women’s writing. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
5.
CeperoH. (2008). Journaling as a spiritual practice: Encountering God through attentive writing. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
6.
CleageP. (1993). Deals with the devil: And other reasons to riot. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
CuttsQ. M. (2009). To be African or not to be: An autoethnographic content analysis of the works of Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard, III (Nana Baffour Amankwatia, II) (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/eps_diss/41
9.
DanticatE. (2011). Create dangerously: The immigrant artist at work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
10.
DavisA. M. (2007). SIP (School Induced Psychosis): Poem for my daughter. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 919-924.
11.
DenzinN. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
12.
DillardC. B. (2002). Walking ourselves back home: The education of teachers with/in the world. Journal of Teacher Education, 53, 383-392.
13.
DillardC. B. (2006). On spiritual strivings: Transforming an African American woman’s academic life. Albany: State University of New York Press.
14.
DillardC. B. (2008a). Re-membering culture: Bearing witness to the spirit of identity in research. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11, 87-93.
15.
DillardC. B. (2008b). A whole sense of self, a whole sense of the world: The blessings of spirituality in qualitative research and teaching. International Review of Qualitative Research, 1, 81-102.
16.
DillardC. B. (2012). Learning to (re)member the things we’ve learned to forget: Endarkened feminisms, spirituality, and the sacred nature of research and teaching. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
17.
DillardC. B. (2016a). Towards an education that (re)members: Centering identity, race, and spirituality in education. Tikkun, 31, 50-53.
18.
DillardC. B. (2016b). Turning the ships around: A case study of (re)membering as transnational endarkened feminist inquiry and praxis for Black teachers. Educational Studies, 52, 406-423.
19.
FaulknerS. (2009). Poetry as method: Reporting research through verse. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
20.
FaulknerS. L. (2007). Concern with craft: Using ars poetica as criteria for reading research poetry. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 218-234.
21.
FaulknerS. L. (2016). The art of criteria: Ars criteria as demonstration of vigor in poetic inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 2, 662-665.
22.
FurmanR. (2003). Exploring step-fatherhood through poetry. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 16, 91-96.
23.
GiovanniN. (2003). The collected poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1968-1998. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
24.
GlesneC. (1997). That rare feeling: Re-presenting research through poetic transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 3, 202-222.
25.
GrooverK. K. (2004). Things of the spirit: Women writers constructing spirituality. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
MadisonD. S. (1991). “That was my occupation”: Oral narrative, performance, and black feminist thought. Text and Performance Quarterly, 13, 213-232.
31.
MarshallP. (1983). Praisesong for the widow. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClelland & Stewart.
32.
MontgomeryN. (2016). Going back to move us forward: A conversation with Dr. Cynthia Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa). Equity & Excellence in Education, 49, 493-497.
33.
MulekaJ. (2014). Centering the peripheral: A case for poetry in Africa. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(1), 150-160.
34.
OkpalaokaC. L.DillardC. B. (2011). Our healing is next to the wound: Endarkened feminisms, spirituality, and wisdom for teaching, learning, and research. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 131, 65-74.
35.
ParmerT. (1994). I am a t-shirt. Journal of Counseling & Development, 72, 440-441.
PrendergastM. (2007). Thinking narrative (on the Vancouver Iland ferry): A hybrid poem. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 743-744.
38.
PrendergastM. (2009). Introduction: The phenomena of poetry in research. In PrendergastM.LeggoC.SameshimaP. (Eds.), Poetic inquiry: Vibrant voices in the social sciences (pp. xix-xlii). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
39.
RichardsonL. (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed., pp. 923-948). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
40.
RichardsonL. (2002). Poetic representation of interviews. In GubriumJ. F.HolsteinJ. A. (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 877-891). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
41.
RyanJ. (2005). Spirituality as ideology in Black women’s film and literature. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
42.
SneiderP. (2013a). How the light gets in: Writing as a spiritual practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
TedlockD. (1983). The spoken word and the work of interpretation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press.
45.
TeicherC. M. (2018). Ars poetica. American Poetry Review, 47(5), 9-11.
46.
ThielD. (2001). Writing your rhythm: Using nature, culture, form and myth. Ashland, OR: Story Line Press.
47.
WalkerA. (1982). The color purple. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
48.
Weir-SoleyD. A. (2009). Eroticism, spirituality, and resistance in Black women’s writings. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
49.
WestE. (2011). African spirituality in Black women’s fiction: Threaded visions of memory, community, nature, and being. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
50.
WheatleyP. (1773). Poems on various subjects, religious and moral. London.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
