By Camea Davis
In analyzing Season 2 of Why Change? A Podcast for a Creative Generation, the variety of diverse speakers (philanthropists, visual artists, teachers, musicians, activists, organizers, non-profit leaders, etc) spoke with deep passion and joy about the issues relevant to their work with young creatives.
In doing so, the poetry was apparent in their speech.
This eclectic group of respondents spoke in rhythm and story more than numerical data and fact. This reality led me to choose critical poetic inquiry as a research tool to synthesize the season. As we understand the responses as data, the data was clear in articulating the poetic sensemaking.
Using Poetic Inquiry
As a result, I conducted a poetic analysis of Why Change? Season 2 in part to synthesize what we learned in this season and additionally to make these lessons super accessible to a new reader/listener of the Podcast and this blog. Poetry is the language of the people!
This poetic analysis synthesizes Why Change? Season 2 podcast guests’ responses. At the end of each episode, guests were invited to offer rapid fire responses to these five closing questions:
Who inspires you?what keeps you motivated?here are you most at home/ grounded?
How do you stay focused?
Why change?
To generate this analysis each participants’ answer to each question was pulled from the transcript and grouped by question. Then all the responses to each question were inductively coded for key ideas within each response and salient themes across all the responses. The words, key ideas, and all images of the poems are direct quotes from the transcripts. The poet-researcher gathers the data and re-presents it as a synthesis of how all participants responded across the 2nd season of the Why Change? podcast.
A Poetic Journey
Below are two of the poems in this five-part series.
Read the text of the poems and click the links below to be taken to the next blog in this series that explores each poem individually.
Inspiration
We, the Creative Generation, are inspired by the people
We are inspired by the creatives
The jazz musician, the pianist, the thespian, the choreographer
We are inspired by young people
Young people with books, art supplies, feet that step up, hands that make change
We are inspired by the women
Daughters, mothers, grandmothers, wives
We are inspired by the activists
Vandana Shiva, Jesus Christ, Augusto Boal
We are inspired by the workers
The organizers, the challengers, that fight like hell to get what they deserve
We are inspired by the people
People that are doing the work beyond themselves
We, the Creative Generation, are inspired at the intersections
Isn’t Jesus Christ a creative?
The single Black mother with six children a magician?
Isn’t the Black philanthropist staying true to herself an activist?
The community a geography unlike the island?
That is so inspiring.
We’re in Good Hands
Together. Teaching students how to step over potholes.
Together. A whole community where emerging artists and students feel they belong.
Together. Meeting people. Making Connections. Inventing and learning and growing.
Together. Share, Share, Share. Letting folks know they got the funding to do the work.
Together. Collaborations with other people. Serve the community. In good company.
Together. Responsibility to not lose hope. To share and not to hoard.
Together. We’re never done. The work is ever evolving.
Click the links below to be taken to the blogs in this series which explores each poem individually.
How to Stay Focused as a State of Matter
Reading all five poems in this series that make up the synthesis of Why Change? Season 2, audiences will notice a clear people centered theme across all the poems. Season 2 was full of stories and discussions about the people who the creative generation is working with, for, and a future they are working towards. Although from a wide range of professional identities, geographic locations, and cultural identities respondents overwhelmingly answered the closing five questions with a focus on holding onto the value of human connection.
Perhaps this could be a consequence of being among a generation that recently experienced several converging pandemics that caused us to globally self isolate in some ways and rally together in others. Perhaps the creative generation are people that see the world as interconnected and evolving in ways that require meaningful connections between people in order to accomplish just outcomes. Perhaps the rapid fire questions themselves wonder about human relationships.
Either way, it is clear that Why Change, Season 2 is a robust offering of knowledge and spirit from key leaders across arts education, arts philanthropy, and art at the intersection of justice. If you have not had the pleasure of listening to these episodes go listen to them and pay attention to the verse in the responses.
Ask yourself why change?
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Davis, C. (2023, May 4). Why Change? Why Poetry?: Poetry is the Language of the People. Creative Generation Blog. Creative Generation. Retrieved from https://www.creative-generation.org/blogs/why-change-why-poetry-poetry-is-the-language-of-the-people