Rhyme, Response, and Reflection: An Investigation of the Possibilities for Critical Transformative Learning Through Adult Poetry Reading

This article summarizes the results of a study of 22 self-identified poetry readers. The project was designed to discover the reasons why adults read poetry, how the love of poetry was inspired, and what they learn from poetry. Through qualitative data analyses, findings indicate that via multiple reading strategies and reflective personal engagement with the prose, our participants constructed new, more critical perspectives that transformed their worldviews. Implications on how poetry and embodied, emotional, and spiritual knowing can be effective learning resources for critical transformative learning are provided.