Abstract
In this personal essay, Ewing explores her own dual identity as a poet and sociologist through three lenses: the use of poetry in the classroom, the use of poetry as evidence for sociological phenomena, and the active craft of living and being in the world as a poet. Drawing on the work of Audre Lorde to argue for a more expansive definition of “poetry,” she suggests that these two creative forms are more intertwined than they might seem, particularly in the lived experiences of black women. Further, she posits that since the black woman’s body remains an oddity in the eyes of academe, black women should approach such boundaries of form and discipline with irreverence rather than concern.
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Notes
- 1.
For more on why pursuing the idea of “appropriateness” is a futile exercise for people of color, see Flores & Rosa, 2015.
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Ewing, E.L. (2018). The Quality of the Light: Evidence, Truths, and the Odd Practice of the Poet-Sociologist. In: Perlow, O., Wheeler, D., Bethea, S., Scott, B. (eds) Black Women's Liberatory Pedagogies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65789-9_11
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