Not some shrink-wrapped beautiful package: using poetry to explore academic life

Abstract

This paper explores teaching in higher education through poetic transcription in order to illustrate the range of influences that shape the ways in which we teach. Through using poetry, this paper examines dimensions such as the past, emotion, humour and uncertainty, which are important aspects of teaching that are sometimes sidelined by more traditional research methods. The paper evokes the richness and complexity of academic life through placing the personal and the particular at the centre in a way that highlights the complexity. In this way it invites participation in the lives of others through providing a window into the academic experience.

Keywords:

• poetry
• poetic transcription
• higher education
• academic identity

Notes

1. The term ‘professor’ is used here in the UK and Australian sense of the term as the highest career level.