A Poetic Epiphany: Explorations of Aesthetic Forms of Representation

Alternative forms of representation, such as poetry, are becoming more widely used by qualitative researchers in disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Aesthetic forms of representation highlight the co-constructed nature of the research project, and in this article we will discuss how they can facilitate creative explorations of lived experience in qualitative research. We begin with an example of a poetic representation of a participant's story as a starting point for our discussion. Next, we describe the process by which the poem was created. Finally, we will discuss other studies that have used similar representational forms and provide a rationale for why these forms may be an appealing choice for other qualitative researchers.