Poetry and the Creation of Relational Space: Conversations for Inquiry and Learning

Abstract

This article proposes that poetry provides a method for doing and writing inquiry that is potentially dialogical. Whilst much postmodern scholarship is written in a way that still privileges a monological author, it is argued that poetry contributes to dialogical inquiry in three ways. In foregrounding poetic form, the use of tropes and poetic license with word order and completion, poetry provides a more spacious writing medium for readers to join with writer in joint construction of meanings. In attending to how writing touches and affects people, poetry provides a written forum that is not governed by linear argument or conclusion. Finally, Poetry provides a written medium that facilitates moving around and about a subject in surprising and illuminating ways.