Poetry, Poetic Inquiry and Rwanda: Engaging with the Lives of Others PDF
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Studies in Arts-Based Educational Research 3 Laura Apol Poetry, Poetic Inquiry and Rwanda Engaging with the Lives of Others Studies in Arts-Based Educational Research Volume 3 Series Editors Barbara Bickel, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA Editorial Board Kakali Bhattacharya, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA Pam Burnard, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Walter S. Gershon, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA Peter Gouzouasis, University of British Columbia, North Vancouver, BC, Canada Andrea Kantrowitz, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, USA Kelly Clark-Keefe, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA Alexandra Lasczik Cutcher, State University of Southern Cross, East Lismore, NSW, Australia Morna McDermott McNulty, Towson University, Catonsville, MD, USA Richard Siegesmund, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL, USA Arts-Based Educational Research continues togarner increasedinterest anddebate among artists, arts writers, researchers, scholars and educators internationally. Further,themethodologiesandtheoreticalarticulationsassociatedwithArts-Based Educational Research are increasingly employed across the disciplines of social science, education, humanities, health, media, communications, the creative arts, design, and trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. This book series offers edited collections and monographs that survey and exemplify Arts-Based Educational Research. The series will take up questions relevant to the diverse range of Arts-Based Educational Research. These questions mightinclude:WhatcanArts-Basedmethodologies(suchasArts-BasedResearch, Arts-Informed Research, a/r/tography, Poetic Inquiry, Performative Inquiry, Arts Practice-Based Research etc.) do as a form of critical qualitative inquiry? How do the Arts (such as literary, visual and performing arts) enable research? What is the purpose of Arts-Based Educational Research? What counts as Arts-Based? What countsasEducational?WhatcountsasResearch?HowcanArts-BasedEducational Researchberesponsiblyperformedincommunitiesandinstitutions,individuallyor collaboratively? Must Arts-Based Educational Research be public? What ways of knowing and being can be explored with Arts-Based Educational Research? How canArts-BasedEducationalResearchbuildupondiversephilosophical,theoretical, historical, political, aesthetic and spiritual approaches to living? What is not Arts-Based Educational Research? The hinge connecting the arts and research in this Arts-Based Educational Researchbookseriesiseducation.Educationisunderstoodinitsbroadestsenseas learning/transformation/change that takes place in diverse formal and informal spaces, places and moments. As such,booksin this series might take up questions such as: How do perspectives on education, curriculum and pedagogy (such as critical, participatory, liberatory, intercultural and historical) inform Arts-Based inquiries? How do teachers become artists, and how do artists become teachers? How can one be both? What does this look like, in and beyond school environments? Arts-Based Educational Research will be deeply and broadly explored, represented, questioned and developed in this vital and digitally augmented international publication series. The aesthetic reach of this series will be expanded byadigitalonlinerepositorywhereallmediapertainingtopublicationswillbeheld. Queries can besent viaemailtoMindy Carter [email protected]. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13575 Laura Apol Poetry, Poetic Inquiry and Rwanda Engaging with the Lives of Others 123 Laura Apol Michigan State University EastLansing, MI,USA ISSN 2364-8376 ISSN 2364-8384 (electronic) Studies in Arts-Based EducationalResearch ISBN978-3-030-56561-9 ISBN978-3-030-56562-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56562-6 ©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNature SwitzerlandAG2021 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsaresolelyandexclusivelylicensedbythePublisher,whether thewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseof illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmissionorinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilar ordissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregard tojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations. Coverdesign:SunKyoungKim ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland An artist and an activist are not so far apart. —Ava DuVernay Series Editor Foreword: A Poetic Inquiry of Withness In2014,IwasinthemidstofproposalwritingforanewbookserieswithSpringer, Studiesin Arts-BasedEducational Research (ABER), now in itsfifth year. Iasked LauratoproposeabookbasedonherpoeticinquiryresearchinRwanda,asIfeltit wouldbeanexemplarABERbooktoinclude.Iwasmorethandelightedwhenshe agreed. Thus began a six year relationship of author and editor, with intermittent pauses along the way, as Laura honored the rich cycle of her poetic inquiry (un- knowinglybirthedfromherfirsttriptoRwandain2006)intertwinedwithherown complex life. This book is one outcome of her fourteen-year engagement with Rwandaandthecommunitythere—anevolvingexperiencemovingherasteacher, poet,investigator,vulnerableobserver,andwitness,culminatinginthispublication and letting go. The publication of this book, for me, is a remembering of my entry into this book series, aswell as aclosingmarkerin letting go ofmyrole asEditor-in-Chief oftheseriesbeforeIrotateoutandontotheEditorialBoard.ItisfittingthatLaura’s book brings my tenure serving as Editor-in Chief for this pedagogically and arts research-rich international series full circle. I first heard Laura present her poetic research on Rwanda at an American Educational Research Association conference in 2013 in San Francisco. I was moved by her project and resonated with her experience of poet as witness, while simultaneously in awe of her compassionate and ethical way of being with Tutsi genocidesurvivorsandtheirstories.Ispokewithheraboutartistandpsychoanalyst BrachaEttinger’smatrixialtheoryandEttinger’sconceptofwit(h)nessing.Ettinger herself is a first-generation survivor of the Holocaust. Her matrixial theory articu- lates a relational process of co-becoming that unfolds through the aesthetic, to the ethical, and lastly to the political (in that order). It is a theory that articulates well the ethical, caring, and compassionate research Laura carried out within the Rwandan community—research preceded by and foundationally impacted by Laura’s many years of teaching and practice of writing as healing. Research that “turnedover”herlifewith conflicting questions ofhercolonial heritage asawhite American woman raised in the Christian church and the impossible possibility of returning to a place of amnesia in her life. Carrying always with her the weight of vii viii SeriesEditorForeword:APoeticInquiryofWithness awareness, poetry was herguide and teacher,from theearly scribbling ofnotes on herfirsttriptoRwandatothecleararticulationofthepowerfulpoeticinquirypath in the pages of this book. The compassionate foundation that lies under this book is writing as healing. Reading can also be healing and transformative, especially when the words are written by a seasoned, articulate, and wise teacher. In my first encounter I was startled by the push into confrontation with the raw lived genocidal experience crafted by the poet’s aesthetic plan. I was fragilized by the self-fragilization of the poet andhercompanionssopresentinthepoems—poemsrevisedagainandagain tomeettheaesthetic,ethical,andpoliticallineofthepoet,teacher,researcher,and activist. Following Laura’s model of honoring one’s capacity to listen while emotionally managing the unimaginable truth, I allowed myself to step back and prepare more fully to be with the truth-telling so poignantly placed with love and careontothepagesofPoetry,poeticinquiryandRwanda:Engagingwiththelives of others. Thisbookisaheart-rending teaching,apost-traumaticaesthetic map laiddown with clear and poignant theory and praxis to extend, serve, and guide poetic inquirers and the growing field of poetic inquiry. Emerging and seasoned poetic inquirers committed to interweaving the social, political, and historical aspects of life relationally, aesthetically, and ethically will be called to action by this book. Through direct and deliberate poetic voice, Laura Apol reveals to us how, as she puts it, we “cannot look; [and] cannotlook/away”from thehorror of genocidenor any other human-created atrocity in the world. Barbara Bickel Southern Illinois University Carbondale, IL, USA Preface I first went to Rwanda in 2006 to plan, with U.S. and Rwandan educators and mental health professionals, a collaborative project using writing as a way to facilitate healing among young adult survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The project involved creating, delivering, and training others in a writing workshopmodel.Duringthecourseoftheproject,ImadeseveraltripstoRwanda, andwhenIworkedwithsurvivorsandlistenedtotheirstories,Icouldnothelpbut turnwhatIwasexperiencingandlearningintowritingofmyown.BecauseIwasa poet, that writing took the form of poems. WitheachreturntoRwanda,Ididmorewriting,andeventuallymypoemswere published as a full-length collection, entitled Requiem, Rwanda (Apol, 2015). However,thepoetrythatgrewfrommyearlyexperienceinRwandawasnot,atthe start,intendedtobemadepublic.Rather,initsearlyiterations,theprocessofwriting poetry of my own played a more personal role: it increased my ability to listen deeply, to understand myself and others, to process what I was learning, and to respondtothetraumaofsurvivors.Itallowedmetodocumentmyownexperiences andresponsesandtobuildandmaintainrelationships.Itallowedmetotellastory,if only tomyself, ofwhat was changingover time—both inme andaround me. In my subsequent returns to Rwanda, I came to understand my writing as “re- searchpoetry”or“poeticinquiry.”Theseaspectsoftheworkemergedinthedoing of them. I was inquiring into my own “lived experience” of Rwanda, conducting poetic reflections on my own learning and on the relationships that were devel- oping, prompted by my need to communicate my understandings to an audience that was at first primarily personal but that later reached beyond myself and close others. The work brought together several aspects of my identity: myself as a poet, myselfasaninquirer,myownethicalcommitments,andmyselfasacollaboratorin relationship with others. These facets both enriched and complicated the work in myriad ways. Always in tension, the poetic, the investigative, the ethical, and the relational aspects of the writing challenged what I knew about aesthetics, about scholarly inquiry, and about personal and professional interactions. ix x Preface This book is the story of that work. In Chap. 1, I begin with an account of my manytripstoRwanda,theirpurposes,andtherelationshipsandreflectionsthatthey made possible across time. In Chap. 2, I outline the process of using arts-based research (in this case, research-poems) to tell the story of my learning—the increasing engagement and my own experience of and in post-genocide Rwanda. Chapters 3–6 use poems to demonstrate some of the priorities that arose and the complications that occurred in my use (and expanding understanding) of poetic inquiry: attention to aesthetic aspects of the poem (Chap. 3); the investigative demandsofinquiry(Chap.4);theethicalself-awarenessofthepoet(Chap.5);and therelationalaccountabilityinherentinthework(Chap.6).Chapter7identifiesthe waytheseaspectsofpoeticinquirygainbothrichnessandcomplexityaspoemsare movedintothepublicrealmthroughpublic/ation.Chapter8providesacloserlook at the intersecting obligations of trustworthy research practice, sensitivity to com- peting demands in inquiry, my own commitment to poetic craft, and an acknowl- edgment of the need for awareness, responsiveness and respect when working across cultures. The final chapter (Chap. 9) revisits the various affordances and tensionsinherentinpoeticinquiryandexploreshowanengagementwiththepoetic —bothinresearchandinart—complicatesandstrengthensunderstandingsofeach. Iconcludebyadvocatingforpoeticattentionassocialaction,and,throughthework in Rwanda, propose broader implications for arts-based research writ large. Throughout, my examination of poetic inquiry is grounded in my own lived experience and my commitments as a poet, as an inquirer, as an activist, and as a witness to the experiences and stories of others. I have used my own poems to demonstrate mygrowingunderstandingofmyself, ofpoetry,andoftheprocessof poetic inquiry as each evolved across visits and across years. Laura Apol Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA
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