Poetic Juxtaposition, a Method for Connecting Data, Theory, and Every Day Texts

Abstract

In this article, I explore an experimental form of writing I term poetic juxtaposition. Drawing from Glesne’s poetic transcription and Prendergast’s use of found poetry as literature review, I define poetic juxtaposition as the creation of research poems that artistically combine qualitative data, excerpts from theoretical texts, and words from every day and popular culture texts. To illustrate the technique, I present three poetic juxtapositions from a critical parent child autoethnography and describe the processes that lead to their creation. The three poems demonstrate how I utilized poetic juxtaposition to make sense of data, establish emergent themes, achieve crystallization of findings, and present my work to a variety of audiences. I conclude by suggesting how this technique might be taken up by others.

Being a square among circles - The Role of Hope in Expanding the Conceptualization of School Attendance Problems: A Poetic Inquiry Approach using Qualitative Interviews with Youth

“…Other poems are written from interview transcripts and sometimes also co-created with the participants in the research project (Richardson, 1997). Some poems are created from collective memory work (Gannon, 2012), and others are produced through a co-thinking of qualitative data, theory, and popular culture texts (Thomas, 2021). Nevertheless, these different ways of performing poetic inquiry in research share the ambition to challenge the reader to perceive the world differently and thus to disturb certain taken-for-granted understandings of the topic at hand.…”

Tools My Mother Gave Me: Four Autoethnographic Poems

“…Poetic inquiry is a method I have utilized consistently (Thomas, 2019a, 2019b, 2021a, 2021b) and have found to allow for emotionally and intellectually engaged qualitative research. I take the art of poetic inquiry seriously and agree with Faulkner (2020) who asserts, “A studious concern with craft may further the poetic goals of writing research poetry and facilitate the connection between science and art” (p. 104).…”

Analogy as racial and political literacy: Taking Children's analyses seriously

“…From 2015 to 2019, when Melva was 5-9 years old and her brother was 7-11 years old, Rhianna conducted a long-term child-parent ethnography in their home and community (Thomas, 2019(Thomas, , 2021(Thomas, , 2022. Rhianna sought to understand how her white children learned about race and racism and how she and her husband, who are both white, might teach an antiracist curriculum (Escayg, 2018).…”

“…The antiracist curriculum in our home was built upon real topics that came up in our lives as well as topics from the children's literature we read together (Thomas, 2019(Thomas, , 2021(Thomas, , 2022. Rhianna sought children's books as well as family-friendly movies and performances with racially diverse characters that addressed racism in the past and present.…”