Metropoems: Poetic Method and Ethnographic Experience

TY - JOUR

T1 - Metropoems

T2 - Poetic Method and Ethnographic Experience

AU - Marechal, Garance

AU - Linstead, Stephen

PY - 2010/1

Y1 - 2010/1

N2 - Discussions of the use and significance of poetry as a research tool have raised the question of poetic technique and craftsmanship in ethnographic poetic outputs. In this article, the authors look explicitly at a contemporary poetic form, the "metropoem" originated by French Oulipian poet Jacques Jouet,(1) arguing that it presents a potentially valuable new tool for qualitative research for four reasons. First, the "metropoetic" form enables the taking of a position that neither turns inward toward the ethnographer's self nor outward toward an empathic relation with the ethnographic other, but is focused in the moment, in place, and in motion-which resists the temptations of nostalgia and Romanticism that have attracted criticism of "research poetry." Second, it imposes a discipline that is derived from a specific activity, which embodies the rhythms, time, and space of that activity, distinguishing metropoems from poetry that recollects or represents. Third, it demands attention to technique, to poetry as a craft, which underscores calls made by recent critical work in this area. Finally, despite being practically, empirically, and metaphorically enformed by the mobility of contemporary urban social experience, it offers a method that can usefully be adapted to encapsulate other forms of social life.

AB - Discussions of the use and significance of poetry as a research tool have raised the question of poetic technique and craftsmanship in ethnographic poetic outputs. In this article, the authors look explicitly at a contemporary poetic form, the "metropoem" originated by French Oulipian poet Jacques Jouet,(1) arguing that it presents a potentially valuable new tool for qualitative research for four reasons. First, the "metropoetic" form enables the taking of a position that neither turns inward toward the ethnographer's self nor outward toward an empathic relation with the ethnographic other, but is focused in the moment, in place, and in motion-which resists the temptations of nostalgia and Romanticism that have attracted criticism of "research poetry." Second, it imposes a discipline that is derived from a specific activity, which embodies the rhythms, time, and space of that activity, distinguishing metropoems from poetry that recollects or represents. Third, it demands attention to technique, to poetry as a craft, which underscores calls made by recent critical work in this area. Finally, despite being practically, empirically, and metaphorically enformed by the mobility of contemporary urban social experience, it offers a method that can usefully be adapted to encapsulate other forms of social life.

KW - research poetry

KW - poststructuralism

KW - ethnography

KW - poetic form

KW - creative constraints

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70450250084&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1077800409349757

DO - 10.1177/1077800409349757

M3 - Article

SN - 1077-8004

VL - 16

SP - 66

EP - 77

JO - Qualitative inquiry

JF - Qualitative inquiry

IS - 1

ER -