The Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche in her insightful TED talk, expounds on “the danger of the single story.” I have always had a tacit knowing about this, that one story is just that: one story. If a story is told long and often enough, it becomes the truth, going possibly unquestioned through generations. I continue to explore my father’s nuclear family and the narratives of his siblings regarding their lives with their Sicilian father. Disrupting the “Master Narrative” using poetic inquiry and respondents’ own words help to redress the lack of their voice(s) in their own experience(s).
AdichieC. (2009). The danger of a single story. New York, NY: TED: Ideas worth spreading.
2.
BaroneT. (2008). How arts-based research can change minds. In Cahnmann-TaylorM.SiegesmundR. (Eds.), Arts-based research in education: Foundations for practice (pp. 28-49). New York, NY: Routledge.
3.
FaulknerS. L. (2016). Poetry as method: Reporting research through verse.New York, NY: Routledge
4.
MorrisonT. (1984). Memory, creation, and writing. Thought, 59, 385-390.
5.
RealeM. (2016). Excavating alternate narratives in an Italian American family: A poetic inquiry. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies. 1532708616673655.
6.
TedlockD. (2011). The spoken word and the work of interpretation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
