Brocading the world : a poetic inquiry

An exploration of poetry at play in one woman’s life, this poetic inquiry seeks to highlight existing relationships between language, poetry and poiesis, life long learning, and a pedagogy of lived experience. This thesis inquires a/r/tographically into some of the relationships between inner knowing, self-expression, the poetic arts, and the value of their confluence for pedagogical practice. As witnessed through the roles of artist (poet and writer), researcher (academic and community), and teacher (visiting artist in the classroom and community educator), I explore what it means to live and learn poetically – as writer, poet, performer, social researcher, and educator. The resulting métissage of poems, autobiographical life writing, and analysis documents the pedagogical intermingling of persona and life activities, using poetic inquiry to (re)present the practice and process of learning in and through the arts, art-making, and teaching. This represents a journey through physical places, actual experiences, the author’s heart and mind, and pedagogy as “a poetic, emotional, personal, spiritual commitment and experience” (Leggo, 2005, p. 439), exploring the value of these processes to learning, teaching, and living skills. Also investigating poetry as practice, in place, and through multiple sites of learning, observed within an ongoing aesthetic of poetical engagement in the world, this view of poetry in research and praxis emphasizes "curriculum" not as a pre-defined set of steps to a pre-determined outcome, but as exploration emphasizing process rather than end product. This brocade of words further investigates poetry as an essential pedagogical tool, suggesting that through poetry, language, learning, and teaching become journeys of self-exploration and creativity, no longer separating “arts” from “humanities,” nor learning from imagination and self-expression.Education, Faculty ofLanguage and Literacy Education (LLED), Department ofGraduat