Poetry as feminist research methodology in the study of female faith

This chapter uses poetic forms of analysis in the study of women's faith lives and develops new forms of poetic analysis as an interpretative lens to re-read the original data. It focuses around a pilot study of one specific case, that of Meg, a participant in this study. The chapter reports on the development of a series of poetic analyses of material from one interview transcript in an endeavour to demonstrate the potential of poetic analysis in researching female faith. It demonstrates how poetic analysis allows a dynamic and deepening conversational engagement with the lived experience of the other, offering the potential for genuinely collaborative and participative research encounters. Poetic analysis offers both a frame and a lens on experience that is focused yet capable of multiple refraction, enabling the many-layered texture of the conversations engaged between research participants to be both held and analysed.