Creating research poetry: A nursing home example

Research poetry is a novel, arts-based form of qualitative data analysis and representation in which researchers create a poem from the transcripts of qualitative interviews. This chapter documents the often hidden processes of creating research poems, providing background detail on the qualitative analysis for a published Qualitative Inquiry article (2015) titled, “‘You could scream the place down’: Five poems on the experience of aged care.” Drawing on data from a study about older adults living in residential care, five key steps are described: (a) immersion, (b) creation, (c) critical reflection, (d) ethics, and (e) engagement (the ICCEE approach). Practical examples (e.g., a table comparing a transcript excerpt with two poems derived from the excerpt), processes, and strategies are outlined, designed to empower readers to engage and experiment with research poetry, also known as poetic inquiry.