Is There a Definition? Ruminating on Poetic Inquiry, Strawberries and the Continued Growth of the Field

Abstract

Over the last ten years, Poetic Inquiry (PI) has proven itself as an emergent arts-based research methodology. It has gained greater acceptance in the larger community of qualitative research due in large part to the hundreds of published studies that employ the writing or analysis of poetry as a major focus of the research process (Finley, 2003; Prendergast, Leggo & Sameshima, 2009; Prendergast & Galvin, 2012). However, despite this greater acceptance and increase in studies found in the literature, there has not been a critical contemporary exploration of the history, theory and method of PI that could lend itself to defining what the method is, for those unfamiliar with it. This article provides a summary of PI as it exists in the literature today. This includes surveying the rhizomatic history of the method, exploring debates around who should or should not use the method and conversation around the current uses of PI in qualitative research.

Keywords

• poetic inquiry
• poetry
• research methods
• arts-based research
• rumination