As a poet, researcher, and teacher in the academy, I have pursued my vocation with an abiding commitment to both creative and critical discourse. I inquire into my autobiographical experiences as a poet, researcher, and teacher in the institutional contexts of a Faculty of Education by creating a performance of poetry that seeks to honour…

For over 30 years I have been committed to theorizing, interrogating, and practicing life writing as an academic, pedagogical, and curricular discipline. In my life writing I often write what one reviewer called "clichés of the heart." I wonder what is wrong with clichés. Why are so many people so ready to criticize others for clichés?…

In this article, the author, a professor, muses over his educational life and the troublesome times he faced. He remarks that he was glad to have had wise voices who could call him to other possibilities, visions, and stories. Roger Simon was one of the most important wise voices he heard, and this sustained the spirit of his work. While many…

This study offers an arts-based a/r/tographic inquiry using poetic transcription and representation of interviews conducted with a co-educational group of 14 students in a West Vancouver, British Columbia secondary school rhythm and blues band class. The decision to translate and analyse the interview transcripts into the Japanese poetry form of…

Discusses autobiography. States that the author, in writing autobiographical poems, is motivated by a desire to inscribe the memory, to fend off forgetfulness, to stake a claim for significance by shaping a story that signifies. Illustrates with various autobiographical poems. (PA)

Reflects on the connections between narrative and lived experience, focusing particularly on a set of three dyads that suggest a relationship of tension: (1) storing life/storying life; (2) truth/fiction; and (3) collection/selection. (TB)

Discusses the conflict over deconstruction, explaining its usefulness in reading, writing, and responding to poetry. After defining deconstruction, presents five approaches to deconstructive reading (self-referentiality, reading from different positions, binary oppositions, figurative/literal language, and intertextuality) and concludes that…

I invite and encourage students to take risks in their writing, to engage innovatively with a wide range of genre, to push limits in order to explore creatively how language and discourse are never ossified, but always organic, how language use is integrally and inextricably connected to identity, knowledge, subjectivity, and living. Informed by…

Defines four kinds of poetry readers: paraphrasers, thematizers, allegorizers, and problem solvers. Recommends an approach to reading a poem that treats the poem as an expansive space in which to romp and play, to explore and travel. Illustrates problem making and lists questions for students. Discusses how to respond by questioning. (PRA)

As a poet and language educator, I invite and encourage writers to take risks in their writing, to engage innovatively with a wide range of genres, to push boundaries in order to explore creatively how language and discourse are never ossified, but always organic; how language use is integrally and inextricably connected to knowledge, identity,…

A college professor who invites his students to consider how creativity is at the heart of teaching offers thoughts on creativity. Everyone can learn creatively; creative approaches are essential to learning; there are many ways to learn; in school there is too much fragmentation; the creative teacher does not always know what will happen; and to…

Contends that this article, a reflection on research as poetic rumination, is scholarly writing, though it might not look or sound like the writing that fills academic journals. Criticizes research that is "bloodless," having been written in the sterility of the monastic sanctum and the academic study. (VWC)

In this essay I offer a series of autobiographical ruminations and poems for inviting readers to reflect on poetic possibilities for conceiving and fostering the well-being of teachers. As an educator, I am confronted daily with challenges. In order to sustain my spirit and energy, I turn to poetry, both reading and writing poetry, and I find in…

Of the many books read by this author over the past several years, one in particular held his attention: "Becoming human" by J. Vanier (1998). In this book, Vanier spells out several interconnected principles for promoting and practicing a curriculum of "becoming human." Vanier's first principle is that "all humans are…