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The use of poetry in qualitative post-hoc analysis

Candace s. brown.

Duke University, Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, PO Box 3003 DUMC, Durham, NC 27710, 919-660-7750, Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center, 508 Fulton St., Mailstop GRECC 182, Durham, NC 27705, 919-286-0411 x 6098

In this brief report three poems stemming from previously completed research into the motivations of 12 Black women who participate in triathlons, are presented. A review of the transcripts revealed impactful stories from the previously identified themes Competition, Triathlete Lifestyle, and Lifespan Participation. A phenomenological approach to this post-hoc qualitative analysis provides an outlet for poetic expression. The poems, each representative of the words and life world sensations recorded within the transcripts, are of varying styles. The first is free form allowing for inconsistency in the poem pattern. The second provides comic relief in a limerick. The last is a sonnet with words that can be put to music. The reexamination of the previous research and development of the poems revealed a theme not previously cited. ‘Time’ is a catalyst for the triathletes and its importance is illuminated in the prose.

Introduction

Poetry, in research, takes the existence of truths within attitudes, feelings, or ideas ( Harmon, 2011 ) and illuminates them through prose that speaks to the mind and heart of readers. According to Ratner (2002) poetry can be used when researchers respect the participants’ reality and are able to accurately comprehend stories. Additionally, researchers should have an awareness of poetic traditions and possess an ability to discuss how poetry informs their work (Faulkner, 2007). When successful, the expressive use of poetry provides an opportunity to: 1) present research findings that may otherwise go unnoticed and 2) gain a new perspective to the researcher ( Sparkes, 2008 ; McCulliss, 2013 ). The poems for this manuscript were derived from the stories of Black women on their motivations to participate in triathlons.

Qualitative research, in mixed methods, provides stories that enrich study analysis. However, integration of data can also cause difficultly in choosing which part of the thematic sections to present. Phenomenology was used to further explore the themes from the original study. First, I reviewed the themes from the previously completed study; following, I reread the transcripts from where the themes emerged. The transcripts captured several aspects of the interviews through the use of auditory recordings (for verbal communication), field notes (for non-verbal communication), and post-interview contact forms (for researcher reflection).

Three themes, Competition, Triathlete Lifestyle, and Lifespan Participation had stories that both embodied the participants’ (n= 12) views of life as triathletes. Similar to Lahman et al. (2011) who reflected on their research representation through a composition of three poems, the following manuscript uses poetic illuminations of data results to present an expanded interpretive life world view for participation in triathlons among the triathletes ( Brown, 2016 ). The stories related to the three specific themes became the source of inspiration for this manuscript and are presented as separate poems.

“My Race ,” is written in free verse because the stories that represented the theme, Competition, were spoken with a sense of freedom. The poem, therefore, is not limited to the regular meter of words. The second poem, “..it happens” is written in limerick style as the novel theme, Triathlete Lifestyle, developed from realities that often provided comic relief. The last poem, “Forever Triing” is a sonnet that was written because life, as a triathlete, is like a song. Following each poem is an inspirational quote from one of the women and a description of the poems’ relation to the study themes.

My Race Seconds, minutes, days and the months have led to the start. My reasons are my own. Eyes focus at the water with anticipation. Legs jump- the adrenaline is high. A cadre of mixed emotions produce the triathlete’s heart. It is racing. Go into myself and start my mantra. Everyone around starts to fade. The yells of encouragement become silent. I’m ready. Time won’t wait for me to finish. So, I’ll just have to beat my time. “The only person that I’m competitive against, is myself.” ~Nita

“My Race” is a description of what occurs before the start of the triathlon. The women described the volume of time and effort placed into their training- for a race that could last up to 18 hours depending on the distance (Sprint to Ironman), their strength and speed, and elements they were unable to control (e.g. weather). Nita, in particular, was recovering from a knee injury during the time of her interview. During her recovery process she saw other triathletes completing races without her and realized that she is her own competition. Her competition was based on her time of surgery, recovery, rehabilitation, and training for the next triathlon season.

Participants spoke of how they would have either a song to sing or words to speak to help with nervousness or keep focused when racing. Going into oneself is how they would rediscover that place of preparedness. A reminder of readiness was a necessity because one could not quit before beginning. Race regulations have a cut off time and not completing the race in the appointed time means disqualification. So, while a triathlete must be aware of their time, the race is not against anyone else. The race is them against their time.

…it happens There was a girl who loved to train. Biking one hundred miles caused pain. She got to the loop. And had to go poop. She now believes she is insane. “When everybody is crazy, nobody is.” ~ Lexi

“…it happens” is derived from the stories of self-realization that produced the theme Triathlon Lifestyle. The time to train and race is often interpreted as ‘crazy’ by non-triathletes. Amateur triathletes train in addition to their careers. Professionals, at least, have the opportunity to earn pay at the end of the race as incentive for all their training. Pain accompanies of the circular process (i.e. the loop) of training. And long training days equal the less likelihood of being places with washroom facilities. So, it is most important to be prepared to handle “business” during the training session. One cannot always estimate when they are going to ‘need to go’ and this leads to a variety of solutions which usually involve a bush and personal tissue. Experienced triathletes are fully aware of this one example of inconvenience yet, they continue to train and race. Lexi, a marathoner, chose to participate in triathlons following a double mastectomy. Her family thought she was crazy for the endeavor but after talking with other triathletes and learning why they compete, she concluded that every triathlete is crazy in their own right. Triathletes believe themselves to be insane- not ‘mentally ill’, but through the shock of what they make their bodies endure.

Forever Triing Fifty-two pairs of running shoes. Innumerable times that bike she mount. Swimsuits for years that were anew. All the gear she cannot count. She sees the future near an end. All her hair is graying too. When her skin is wearing thin. Her unwrinkled face still has youth. She searches for others who look like her. Not as many as she’d like to see. She throws her fist to infer. Pride and strength to the minority. Her race times may start to slow. But she will not stop her race. She reached a personal plateau. And intends to participate. She is a lifelong triathlete. That is who she will always be. “I saw the finish line and…I was like, I wanna do this for the rest of my life.” ~Marissa

“Forever Triing” speaks to the future of racing. This poem derived from the theme, Lifespan Participation, which was embedded within the Triathlon Lifestyle theme. The word “triing” is dual defined meaning both “to try” and also, “to move toward completing a triathlon”. A triathlete needs a lot of sporting gear for the three sporting events and will use many pairs of running and biking shoes and swimsuits throughout their triathlon career. The signs of aging, including graying hair and racing at a slower pace, are apparent. But, the face of anticipation of starting a race, excitement and pain through a race, and relief following completing a race is recognizable- regardless of age. There is a continuous vitality and distinct look of youth in all those who continue to participate.

Marissa has been racing for over 10 years and from the first moment she crossed the finish line, she knew this sport would be hers forever. She has experienced the growth in numbers of Black triathletes; however, these numbers are significantly lower than those of White triathletes. There is a sense of belonging past the culture of being a triathlete. Cultural belonging, within the Black triathlete community, is deeper because social stigmas, such as the inability to swim among Blacks, are proudly disproven. Seeing another Black triathlete at a race is a reminder that one is not alone. The raising of the fist is one to remind others of the pride they should feel as Black triathletes, the strength they should give to all triathletes, and the respect to all who are part of the triathlon community. Throughout the time of the lifespan, changes to body composition may affect the distance, number of triathlons completed in each year, and the allotted time to finish a race. However, aging does not mean quitting, rather this form of sport serves as a life extension.

The purpose of this writing was to revisit the conclusions of a previously completed study and provide an interpretation of the themes through poetry. Poetry allows for an “evocative way of communication,” in sport ( Sparkes, 2008 , p. 658). It has been used to share the processes of athletes in golf ( Douglas, 2012 ) and football ( Keyes & Gearity, 2011 ); this piece adds to the use of poetry in sport using triathletes. The three poems were inspired by the stories of midlife to older Black women triathletes. The subjective point of view is considered absolute in qualitative research; however, using objectivism for this manuscript enabled precision in the cultural analysis of the women as triathletes ( Ratner, 2002 ). The opportunity to compose poems, based on previous data and analysis, unexpectedly revealed “time” as a main theme.

Other research has identified time as a barrier for participation in exercise among Black women ( Pekmezi et al., 2013 ). In this post-hoc analysis, measurements of time are embedded within the lines. In the first poem this is read in the words, “Seconds, minutes, days and the months have led to the start,” and then towards the end of the poem when the triathlete reminds herself that time will not wait for her to finish so she must beat it (time). Although time is not directly mentioned in the second poem, it is inferred in the line, “Biking one hundred miles caused pain,” as it takes hours to ride a bike for that distance. The effects of time are discussed in the first two stanzas of the sonnet. The first stanza is focused more on the accessories of the triathlete: number of shoes, the bike she mounted so often she does not know the count, the worn swimsuits and additional gear that cannot be counted. The second stanza is about how time has affected her body. Her hair is gray, the skin is thin, and her end is near. Through these poems, however, the triathlete does not allow time to have power. She is the master of time and therefore, a lifelong triathlete.

Time is likely an especially important factor for all triathletes as they master their events quickly and efficiently. The concept of time being a major theme around the life world of a triathlete, as it relates to their training schedule, work life (for amateurs), family and friends (who often lend social support), and any additional responsibilities that accompany adulthood is one that could be explored among other triathletes in future studies.

Taking the opportunity to do a post-hoc qualitative analysis of previous research and write the results in the form of poetry, allowed for a new perspective in qualitative research. The poems revealed time as a catalyst for participation in the sport. These women are participating in triathlons for a myriad of reasons. But, perhaps in the end, it is all about time. Out-swimming time. Out-biking time. Out-running time. Out-living time.

Acknowledgments

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute of Aging under Grant number T32-AG-000029-41

Special thank you to Casson B.A. Brown who served as a literary advisor in writing the poems.

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A Look Back and a Path Forward: Poetry's Healing Power during the Pandemic

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• Published: 26 August 2020
• Volume 41 , pages 603–608, ( 2020 )

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• David Haosen Xiang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8363-2438 1   na1 &
• Alisha Moon Yi 2   na1  

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This discussion seeks to highlight the ability of poetry to combat loneliness, a growing public health problem with significant negative health outcomes that potentially impact millions of Americans. We argue that poetry can play a very relevant role and have an impact in medicine. Through a brief literature review of previous studies on poetry in medicine, we demonstrate that poetry can not only combat loneliness but can also play important roles in helping patients, physicians, and other healthcare professionals/providers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe now is the perfect opportunity to utilize poetry because the benefits can be experienced even in solitude, which is why this is such a timely and pertinent issue today.

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“Healing is a matter of time, but it is also a matter of opportunity.” -- Hippocrates

Introduction

During this pandemic, the dangers of loneliness and social isolation cannot be ignored. Loneliness is associated with a 26% increase in risk of premature mortality, can have a negative impact on cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems, and affects about a third of people in most industrialized countries (Cacioppo and Cacioppo 2018 ). Reducing social interactions is a well-documented risk factor for several mental disorders including schizophrenia and major depression, as well as generating increased feelings of fear and anxiety (Miller 2011 ). Moreover, with acute stress generated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reported symptoms of psychological stress, including loneliness, among American adults have increased since 2018 (McGinty et al. 2020 ).

With the disruption of regular networks of trusted individuals and groups, that means we must confront these pertinent mental health issues ourselves. Yet without meaningful methods or practical tools to do so, many have nowhere to turn to, and no solution seems to be in sight. Lack of access to mental health resources is exacerbated by this pandemic, and improving mental health services is needed (Moreno et al. 2020 ). After all, loneliness is becoming an incredibly pressing public health problem, and must be addressed with proper engagement and full support from the medical community.

In this paper, we hope to show that poetry can be a powerful, practical, and accessible tool to combat loneliness directly, and that poetry can provide a new avenue for healing. Since the nineteenth century, poetry has been used formally and informally for healing purposes in the United States, and now, in our current day, we believe the opportunity for poetry’s significance and applications to be recognized is crucial (Mazza and Hayton 2013 ). During this COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity for poetry to provide healing can be immediately effective and applied widely.

Poetry in medicine

Poetry, as a healing tool applicable and accessible to anyone, can have a concrete impact in all areas of medicine, specifically in providing innovative methods for healing to occur individually and holistically.

Several scientific studies and reviews have previously demonstrated that poetry has a beneficial impact on patients in terms of managing pain, coping with stressors, and improving personal well-being (Lepore and Smyth 2002 ). Moreover, listening, writing, and reading poetry is associated with a reported improvement in pain following a surgical procedure and improves a patient's ability to deal with chronic illness (Arruda, Garcia, and Garcia 2016 ; Naidu and Shabangu 2015 ; Eum and Yim 2015 ; Hovey, Khayat, and Feig 2018 ). Additionally, poetry provides patients with further methods of coping with unexpected or stress-inducing situations. A previous study demonstrated that reading and writing poetry temporarily increases working memory capacity, which can increase an individual’s ability to proactively cope with stressful events. Moreover, this improvement in working memory is associated with greater recall of medication instructions and scheduled health appointments, which improves health outcomes (Klein 2002 ).

In directly addressing mental health, poetry has been shown to have positive short and long-term mood changes as well as behavioral effects in school and work performance (Lepore 1997 ). Expressive writing can decrease physiological stress indicators such as lower muscle tension, reduce perspiration level, and lower blood pressure and heart rate levels (Smyth et al. 1999 ). Furthermore, the introspective writing that poetry fosters also offers patients an opportunity to reflect on their lives, enabling them to accept their situation with poise and peace (Heimes 2011 ). This aspect of poetry is often highlighted in palliative care, as there has been a growing recognition within the field to recognize how poetry can develop person-centered organizations, better train health professionals, and support a patient’s overall well-being (Davies 2018 ; Coulehan and Clary 2005 ). Previous literature review on poetry therapy for patients in palliative and end-of-life care show that poetry facilitates meaningful shared experiences and significantly improves relationships between healthcare providers and patients (Gilmour, Riccobono, and Haraldsdottir 2019 ).

In health professions education, specifically, in nursing, poetry has been frequently employed as a teaching platform to teach values such as empathy, to develop greater emotional awareness, to reduce anxiety and stress, and to assess communication skills (Mood 2018 ; Jack 2015 ). The benefits that poetry can have in fostering empathy and greater self-awareness for those in the nursing profession have been well-documented and provide a different approach that can greatly enhance knowledge of complex and ambiguous situations often experienced in nursing practice (Clancy and Jack 2016 ).

For the caregiver, physician, or healthcare professional, poetry can provide a different lens with which to view the field of medicine. Poetry offers an innovative approach to further humanizing medicine through promoting empathy, emotional sensitivity, cultivating a compassionate presence, and ultimately, providing an accessible platform to acquire and develop skills that are difficult to otherwise teach. Furthermore, these are traits crucial in healing and can significantly increase one’s own effectiveness, further helping and facilitating the patient experience.

For patients, poetry provides a space to vent, to reflect, and to come to terms with their respective situation. It provides an organizational structure with which to tackle new perceptions and deal with negative thoughts. Healing can take place within individuals, at a pace determined by them. Whether it is coping with pain, dealing with stressful situations, or coming to terms with uncertainty, poetry can benefit a patient’s well-being, confidence, emotional stability, and quality of life (Heimes 2011 ). Poetry restores agency, allowing one’s voice to be heard and represented the way he or she wishes it to be. Moreover, when writing, the poems that patients generate can serve as valuable repositories of past knowledge and experience and can comfort relatives or affected parties, which oftentimes strengthens relations with loved ones. Poetry has immediate benefits for not just the individual but also for the immediate family members, and the larger community as a whole.

The benefits of poetry in medicine and public health today

One of the key tools to combat loneliness is a strong social relationship with others. A genuine connection with others can effectively help those who are suffering from loneliness. As a matter of fact, the presence of strong social relationships is associated with a 50% increased likelihood of survival, and surprisingly, both actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton 2010 ). A 2015 study found no differences in increased likelihood of mortality between measures of objective and subjective social isolation, suggesting that both perceived and actual social isolation can have similar detrimental effects on individuals (Holt-Lunstad et al. 2015 ).

That is where the three aspects of poetry—reading, writing, and sharing—become so incredibly relevant and applicable. To paraphrase poet Paul Celan, a poem is like a handshake: it creates bonds between people. Poetry, and the creative introspection it fosters, can help individuals feel more connected to themselves, to those around them, and to the external world as a whole. Even when practiced in isolation, as many individuals currently are during this pandemic, poetry can increase self and interpersonal awareness, encourage the ownership of voicing your own ideas and emotions, and increase one’s ability to reflect upon significant memories or current-day situations. This can directly address both actual and perceived social isolation and can be a powerful step in helping individuals combat loneliness.

When reading poetry, one is able to challenge his or her own perspectives, to become more tolerant of different points of view, and to appreciate the nuances of various opinions. Reading poetry can also help individuals feel connected to others; oftentimes, reading a poem can remind the individual of a similar experience or emotion, creating a sense of belonging. Poems have real emotional power and serve as a testament to all of us that we are never alone, that amongst these collective voices we can find those that ring at the same frequency as ours (Wassiliwizky et al. 2017 ). Reading poetry can provide solace and great hope to us, as it reaffirms our place in the world and, in those moments when we come across a poem or certain lines that strongly resonate with us, it is as if we are jolted with electricity at the sheer joy of knowing we can share a bond with someone who we may have never met.

In writing poetry, the mind is forced to slow down and to revisit memories, often bringing to life past emotions and experiences. The process itself is a dynamic one in which writers often learn many new things about themselves that they did not previously think about. Writing poetry also allows one to strengthen an individual’s sense of identity and voice. Poems function as fragments of ourselves, and when writing, we are able to represent ourselves the way we want to be represented, in the most honest and effective light. Poetry allows us to bear witness to who we are and to put into words what often cannot be expressed easily otherwise. Poetry creates avenues for self-expression that cannot be felt through other means of communication. This in itself can be a healing and restorative process, a self-guided therapy that allows us to strengthen our mental health and connection to ourselves, and to those around us.

And when provided a space to share poetry with others, as one is listening to others’ lived experiences and emotions, social bonds can be formed, and safe spaces can be generated where vulnerability and tolerance are actively encouraged. In sharing favorite lines or discussing experiences and emotions with strangers, poetry can bring people together, from all backgrounds, with subtle ease. Unexpected commonalities are frequently found, which spur conversation and a further willingness to create new social relationships. Poetry can create genuine community and an atmosphere of welcome and warmth.

We experienced this firsthand through the Hope Storytelling Project, a series of virtual poetry workshops that we co-led and taught through our local library systems in Cambridge and Las Vegas. We had developed our program with discussion and connection in mind, as we wanted both to teach poetry and to allow our participants to form meaningful social relationships with each other. Quickly, we realized that the sense of community we were able to generate through poetry was incredibly valuable. Over the course of the summer, we consistently had participants remark on the sense of belonging and community that the workshops provided, and how encouraged they were to speak and share their hopes and fears, their worries and joys, and to feel a real connection to others, while learning and immersing themselves in poetry. They shared how the space absorbed them in heartfelt sharing, how the workshops felt like a gentle cleansing, how people’s willingness to share was truly touching, and how poetry enabled them to continue their journey of self-discovery and healing.

Our experiences with teaching and leading these poetry workshops reaffirmed our belief that poetry can serve as an effective antidote to loneliness and the health complications that social isolation brings. During this pandemic, this project provides a model for coping with the uncertainty and chaos of life: as we were reminded of each other's stories, we were able to find similarities in seemingly different lives, finding connection through those similarities. In the moments of interaction and dialogue with each other, we saw genuine relationships being cultivated.

Most importantly, the accessible nature of poetry makes it an incredibly relevant and applicable tool, especially now, when genuine connections are a scarce commodity. Poetry is particularly powerful because it is so easily accessible, as its benefits can be experienced from the comfort of one’s own home. Simply by reading a poem once a week, sharing a poem with a friend, or spending five to ten minutes to free write about a favorite memory, a current idea, a worry or hope, can all be effective first steps in experiencing the benefits of poetry. It is imperative that we bring such experiences into more communities, where other methods and tactics to combat loneliness may not be as accessible. The opportunity is now to recognize the healing potential of poetry.

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Xiang, D.H., Yi, A.M. A Look Back and a Path Forward: Poetry's Healing Power during the Pandemic. J Med Humanit 41 , 603–608 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09657-z

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Poems & Poets

#PoemResearch: Notes on Researching as a Poet

BY Hai-Dang Phan

Late in Leaving the Atocha Station , Ben Lerner’ s novel about a young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, we receive this capsule description of the research project our narrator has successfully evaded and talked around:

Maybe if I remained I would pursue the project described so many months ago in my application, composing a long and research-driven poem, whatever that might mean, about the literary responses to the Civil War, exploring what such a moment could teach us about ‘literature now.’ My Spanish would rapidly improve; I would not read Ashbery or Garnett or anything else in English, but hurl myself headlong at the Spanish canon; I would become the poet I pretended to be and realize my project. I would buy a phone and consummate my relationship with Teresa.

Through his fictional proxy Adam Gordon, Lerner gives us an experience of what it feels like to be on prestigious fellowship—if you were, say, a talented young poet with an almost crippling self-awareness of the privileges afforded by race, class, and gender, but not so crippling as to take the fellowship, then novelize your paralysis. Your predicament is hilariously summed up by the phrase: “the experience of experience sponsored by my fellowship.” For you, experience never appears without modifiers or within square quotes. You worry the difference between research and experience , or perhaps their increasing interchangeability. Everything and everyone for you is potential research. You need critical distance from your life. The novelization of your unsentimental education will be conceptualized, divided, and ironized into “phases,” a technique that will allow you to acknowledge institutional formations, structure the novel around a research plot, and gesture toward questions about the ways in which modern poetry has been affected by scientific rationality. Like a good poet, you want to defend imagination against scientific rationality but the new language is not yet there for you. You fake it until you make it, and then when you have seemingly made it, you remain haunted by the ghost of the genuine—its possibility in art, in life, and in love. Reader, I have felt like Adam Gordon.

I’m a poet and not a researcher is something I said in a recent conversation with an editor. The editor thought I encompassed both. I balked at the idea, even though they meant it as a favorable observation, even though it was a perceptive recognition of my intellectual preoccupations, mixed materials, and impassioned methods. To my selective ears, researcher still sounded too much like a job description; it made me seem too industrious, purposeful, methodical, like I was working on a project. I’m a lazy poet, a lazier scholar. But the editor was a good reader of my poetry and helped me become a better reader of my own work, so I felt compelled to give the question more thought. I also knew that my repulsion was a defense mechanism. I associated research with the academic articles and monographs I was trained to produce as a graduate student in literature and those I am expected to produce as an English professor. Then and now, research is often the enjoyable and stimulating part; it is the academic writing part I find difficult and resistant to my creative impulses and intuition. My research has often found its way into my poetry. Many of my poems explore the memory, history, and legacy of the Vietnam War from my perspective as a second generation Vietnamese American, a subject I researched and wrote about for my dissertation. My scholarship and my creative writing share much of the same archives. It’s what I do with the research that differs. As a poet, that means making poems.

But how ought a poet research? What do poets talk about when we talk about research? Why is it that when poets talk about research it is either a joke or cloaked in an aurora of seriousness? Type the hashtag and see for yourself. You’ll find tweets by poets along the lines of What’s the Spanish word for hickey? What causes ringing in the ear? There is an entire Wikipedia page about dust. There are five distinctive morphological patterns of necrosis. Has anyone out there ever sucked the caviar from a live fish? (Salmon). If so, is it cold or warm? Thanks! Is research for poets another technique to create experience, like sex or intoxication?

Three poets who use research in reflexive and reflective ways:

Susan Howe shattered two images at once for me when I first encountered her work as an undergrad. The first image was that of the poet as untutored beatnik haunting dimly lit cafés. The second was the scholar as passionless brain in lab coat or tweed jacket. She gave me permission to be what Coleridge calls “a library cormorant.” In Howe’s hybrid work research creates situations that increase chance correspondences and triggers involuntary memories. Her recent book Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of the Archives , “a collaged swan song to the old ways” of researching, is a remarkable splicing of passion and intellect, re-collected documents and recollected experience:

Reading Paterson reminds me of walking barefoot across a small strip of common land near my house that’s littered with beach glass, broken oyster shells, razor clams and kelp. It’s called a beach, but no one swims there because even at high tide what is euphemistically referred to as “sand” quickly becomes marl, mud, and marsh grass. I feel the past vividly here—my own memories and the deeper past I like to explore in poems. As I look across Long Island Sound I can imagine it as an open ocean.

Reading and walking. The page and the landscape. In Howe’s work we find research and poetry so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, a formal experimentalism that trespasses the laws of genre. The bit of prose quoted above characteristically breaks off into a line of lyric flight—“O Thalassa, Thalassa! / the lash and hiss of water // The sea!” from William Carlos Williams’ s Paterson , Book III, The Library . In Howe’s title you hear echoes of Williams’s “to make a start / out of particulars” and think: No research but in things! For Howe, researching and writing are complementary, mutually affecting acts. Howe’s poet-researcher is a scout, a rover, a trespasser unsettling the wilderness of American literary history. Her poems and essays continually enact that anticipatory moment before discovery, of making connections, before anything is ever fixed into ideas. “If you are lucky,” she writes, “you may experience a moment before .” Reading her writing you experience the feeling of thinking: “Each collected object or manuscript is a pre-articulate empty theater where a thought may surprise itself at the instant of seeing. Where a thought may hear itself see.”

Natasha Trethewey’ s Native Guard is a rescue mission, like Howe’s work, to lift human voices out of historical silence. The title poem, based on the poet’s research into the history of the first black regiments during the Civil War, adopts the historical personae of the Louisiana Native Guards. I think of her “Native Guard” as Civil War reenactment pieces in sonnet form. Here is how the first sonnet, “November 1862,” opens the sequence:

Truth be told, I do not want to forget anything of my former life: the landscape’s song of bondage—dirge in the river’s throat where it churns into the Gulf, wind in trees choked with vines. I thought to carry with me want of freedom though I had been freed, remembrance not constant recollection.

Better perhaps to call “Native Guard” a monument of sonnets, as Trethewey uses her technical mastery of the formal verse to memorialize the black Union dead. In the corona (crown)—the last line of the initial sonnet acts as the first line of the next, and the ultimate sonnet’s final line repeats the first line of the initial sonnet—Trethewey finds a form to represent intersecting lines of history and the essential mixing that makes American identity. If “Native Guard” at times telegraphs its meaning and mission, the poems nonetheless seem willing to risk their more formulaic statements in order to achieve their re-visionary force as counter-narratives. “Some names shall deck the page of history / as it is written on stone. Some will not,” as it is written in the sonnet for “June 1863.” These poems do not engrave names (the speakers of the sonnets remain nameless), but instead they imagine past lives in the present tense. Other sonnets log the nightmare of history (“Last night, / I dreamt their eyes still open – dim, clouded / as the eyes of fish washed ashore, yet fixed - / staring back at me”). Trethewey describes her process of researching as a poet in an interview: “Then, before I could write I had to shove it all aside. I had to forget everything from the front of my brain, or at least in the foreground of my thinking, to forget all that I had read. But it was still there for me to access as I tried to write poems. It didn’t go away, but I had to get out of the mode of researcher and back into the mode of poet.” Trethewey has had to rely on her own intuition, invention, and imagination to conjure these voices from the past as if they had been passed down and collected in a research library. That is the melancholy of these sonnets as imagined documents. The sonnets stand in not only a proxy witness, but also as proxy documents for what has been lost or uncollected.

Robin Coste Lewis’ s Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems combines the experimentalism of Susan Howe with the formalism of Natasha Trethewey into a remarkable unity of autobiographical lyric, archival research, and literary activism. Structured as a triptych, the collection begins and ends with autobiographical lyric poems. The central panel is “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” an archival lyric made up entirely of the titles of artworks, from ancient times to the present, that feature or comment on the black female figure in Western art. The title poem is divided into eight sections, or “Catalogs,” a keyword that points back to the libraries, archives, and museums listed in the final “Notes” section of poem. In “Catalog 4: Medieval Colonial,” the list is one of numerous representational strategies:

The slaves escaping through the swamp, The Slave watching her pursuers in for e— Ground Black Woman walking in front of a Board Fence Background Plantation House and Outbuildings (or Slave Quarters). In a Grove of Trees Slave Woman wearing Runaway. Collar with Two Children, emaciated. Negro Man eating Dead. Horseflesh in the background. Negro Man strapped to a ladder, Being. Lashed Slave Woman seen

In Coste Lewis’s work a reader must constantly negotiate the meaning of what is being named and seen in a shifting “for e / Ground” that, as glimpsed in the above lines, becomes unsettled as words are pulled apart, isolated, and recombined, or punctuation errors and random capitalization disrupt the flow of reading. Here and elsewhere “Voyage” runs interference against the descriptive violence of representations of the black female figure in Western art—that is, descriptions of scenes of violence, but also descriptions that reveal ways of looking at, categorizing, ordering, and subjugating that rationalizes acts of violence. She uses the poetic catalogue against the colonial order of things, disordering the sight, sound, and sense of words. Researching for Coste Lewis—as it is for Howe and Trethewey—means researching back, a critical and creative strategy to interrogate the past and to write poetry that shifts our knowledge in the present.

Let’s remember what Frank O’Hara says in his poem “Having a Coke with You”: “what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them / when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank / or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully / as the horse / it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience / which is not going to go wasted on me / which is why I’m telling you about it.” Research desires touch. Research does no good without the kind of intimate knowledge we associate with lovers. And also what Guy Davenport discovers in his essay “Finding”: “I learned from a whole childhood of looking in fields how the purpose of things ought perhaps to remain invisible, no more than half known.” I want a research that follows the unsystematic, lackadaisical, and serendipitous zig-zag of walking through an oak savanna or reconstructed prairie. Finally, for now, I return to Susan Howe after Leaving the Atocha Station . Unlike Adam Gordon, Howe does not go in fear of experience. “In this room I experience enduring relation and connection between what was and what is,” she writes. Language remains the quarry, truth and beauty still the quest.

Hai-Dang Phan was born in Vietnam and grew up in Wisconsin. He is an assistant professor of English ...

EH -- Researching Poems: Strategies for Poetry Research

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• Strategies for Poetry Research

Page Overview

This page addresses the research process -- the things that should be done before the actual writing of the paper -- and strategies for engaging in the process.  Although this LibGuide focuses on researching poems or poetry, this particular page is more general in scope and is applicable to most lower-division college research assignments.

Before You Begin

Before beginning any research process, first be absolutely sure you know the requirements of the assignment.  Things such as  

• the date the completed project is due 
• the due dates of any intermediate assignments, like turning in a working bibliography or notes
• the length requirement (minimum word count), if any 
• the minimum number and types (for example, books or articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals) of sources required

These formal requirements are as much a part of the assignment as the paper itself.  They form the box into which you must fit your work.  Do not take them lightly.

When possible, it is helpful to subdivide the overall research process into phases, a tactic which

• makes the idea of research less intimidating because you are dealing with sections at a time rather than the whole process
• makes the process easier to manage
• gives a sense of accomplishment as you move from one phase to the next

Characteristics of a Well-written Paper

Although there are many details that must be given attention in writing a research paper, there are three major criteria which must be met.  A well-written paper is

• Unified:  the paper has only one major idea; or, if it seeks to address multiple points, one point is given priority and the others are subordinated to it.
• Coherent: the body of the paper presents its contents in a logical order easy for readers to follow; use of transitional phrases (in addition, because of this, therefore, etc.) between paragraphs and sentences is important.
• Complete:  the paper delivers on everything it promises and does not leave questions in the mind of the reader; everything mentioned in the introduction is discussed somewhere in the paper; the conclusion does not introduce new ideas or anything not already addressed in the paper.

Basic Research Strategy

• How to Research From Pellissippi State Community College Libraries: discusses the principal components of a simple search strategy.
• Basic Research Strategies From Nassau Community College: a start-up guide for college level research that supplements the information in the preceding link. Tabs two, three, and four plus the Web Evaluation tab are the most useful for JSU students. As with any LibGuide originating from another campus, care must be taken to recognize the information which is applicable generally from that which applies solely to the Guide's home campus. .
• Information Literacy Tutorial From Nassau Community College: an elaboration on the material covered in the preceding link (also from NCC) which discusses that material in greater depth. The quizzes and surveys may be ignored.

Things to Keep in Mind

Although a research assignment can be daunting, there are things which can make the process less stressful, more manageable, and yield a better result.  And they are generally applicable across all types and levels of research.

1.  Be aware of the parameters of the assignment: topic selection options, due date, length requirement, source requirements.  These form the box into which you must fit your work.  

2. Treat the assignment as a series of components or stages rather than one undivided whole.

• devise a schedule for each task in the process: topic selection and refinement (background/overview information), source material from books (JaxCat), source material from journals (databases/Discovery), other sources (internet, interviews, non-print materials); the note-taking, drafting, and editing processes.
• stick to your timetable.  Time can be on your side as a researcher, but only if you keep to your schedule and do not delay or put everything off until just before the assignment deadline. 

3.  Leave enough time between your final draft and the submission date of your work that you can do one final proofread after the paper is no longer "fresh" to you.  You may find passages that need additional work because you see that what is on the page and what you meant to write are quite different.  Even better, have a friend or classmate read your final draft before you submit it.  A fresh pair of eyes sometimes has clearer vision. 

4.  If at any point in the process you encounter difficulties, consult a librarian.  Hunters use guides; fishermen use guides.  Explorers use guides.  When you are doing research, you are an explorer in the realm of ideas; your librarian is your guide. 

A Note on Sources

Research requires engagement with various types of sources.

• Primary sources: the thing itself, such as letters, diaries, documents, a painting, a sculpture; in lower-division literary research, usually a play, poem, or short story.
• Secondary sources: information about the primary source, such as books, essays, journal articles, although images and other media also might be included.  Companions, dictionaries, and encyclopedias are secondary sources.
• Tertiary sources: things such as bibliographies, indexes, or electronic databases (minus the full text) which serve as guides to point researchers toward secondary sources.  A full text database would be a combination of a secondary and tertiary source; some books have a bibliography of additional sources in the back.

Accessing sources requires going through various "information portals," each designed to principally support a certain type of content.  Houston Cole Library provides four principal information portals:

• JaxCat online catalog: books, although other items such as journals, newspapers, DVDs, and musical scores also may be searched for.
• Electronic databases: journal articles, newspaper stories, interviews, reviews (and a few books; JaxCat still should be the "go-to" portal for books).  JaxCat indexes records for the complete item: the book, journal, newspaper, CD but has no records for parts of the complete item: the article in the journal, the editorial in the newspaper, the song off the CD.  Databases contain records for these things.
• Discovery Search: mostly journal articles, but also (some) books and (some) random internet pages.  Discovery combines elements of the other three information portals and is especially useful for searches where one is researching a new or obscure topic about which little is likely to be written, or does not know where the desired information may be concentrated.  Discovery is the only portal which permits simul-searching across databases provided by multiple vendors.
• Internet (Bing, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo, Google, etc.): primarily webpages, especially for businesses (.com), government divisions at all levels (.gov), or organizations (.org). as well as pages for primary source-type documents such as lesson plans and public-domain books.  While book content (Google Books) and journal articles (Google Scholar) are accessible, these are not the strengths of the internet and more successful searches for this type of content can be performed through JaxCat and the databases.  

NOTE: There is no predetermined hierarchy among these information portals as regards which one should be used most or gone to first.  These considerations depend on the task at hand and will vary from assignment o assignment.

The link below provides further information on the different source types.

• Research Methods From Truckee Meadows Community College: a guide to basic research. The tab "What Type of Source?" presents an overview of the various types of information sources, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each.
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• Last Updated: Sep 3, 2024 10:23 AM
• URL: https://libguides.jsu.edu/litresearchpoems