'Transcending the limits of logic': poetic inquiry as a qualitative research method for working with vulnerable communities

[Extract] In this chapter, we offer an overview of the diverse ways in which poetry is being used in qualitative inquiry. We seek to illuminate for readers how and why poetic inquiry has value for such researchers. Illustrative projects and poems are placed throughout the chapter to help contextualise the literature reviewed. For example, in the poem above, the first author uses the poetic form to reflect on and express her motivations for engaging in qualitative research. This poem provides an embodied demonstration of one of the ways poetry can be a useful tool for researchers; allowing researchers to express the emotional research journey through metaphors and images not available to them in traditional academic language. In this example, poetry functions as a creative form of self-reflexivity, of understanding the self and how this self shapes the interpretation and construction of knowledge produced in research. However, poetry is used in diverse ways by qualitative researchers. In poetic inquiry, poems can be a source of data, a form of data, a way of representing complex or even unspeakable social dilemmas, or a methodology or means through which to link research processes to research outcomes for transparent, powerful effect. Poetics can be viewed as a discourse articulating 'the relationship between the creative work and its critical inputs and outcomes' (Lyall, 2014, p. 134, citing the work of Lasky, 2013)