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practice, reflective practice was viewed by nurses as a cathartic process
(Clarke & Hopkinson 2000).
There is very little nursing poetry literature that suggests poetry can be
used as a deliberate collaborative reflexive process inquiring into nursing
practice. For example, Taylor (2006) and Johns (2006) recognise the
creative value of poetry but seem to regard it as an individual and private
pursuit and do not acknowledge openly that poetry can connect others to
the emotional aspects of nursing. However, Taylor (2006) recognised that
creative expression can assist reflections over time to deepen self
understanding. Nevertheless, it was in 2007 after I had been using poetry
in the ward and classroom for three years, when I came across Foureur et
al‘s (2007) and later Searle and Sheehan‘s (2008) work facilitating group
reflective processes through poetry reading and writing. They argued
poetry can help nurses ―express the complexity of human care practice‖
(ibid p. 203) thereby appreciating the reality and impact of nursing on
nurses‘ own lives.
However, Foureur et al (2007) and later Davies (2008) described poetry as
a ―tool‖ for reflective practice. In noticing the language of ‗tool‘ I see this as
in danger of becoming a potentially instrumental and mechanistic process
which is at odds with my own discovery that poetry enables a powerful
emotional and relational connection with others that is complex and
nuanced. Somehow the language of ―tool‖ seems to reduce the potential
from the process. ‗Tool‘ appears in the reflective practice literature in
nursing more often associated with models or when describing reflective
practice as a function that can enhance practice 18 . I see this as a doxa that
subtly reduces the relational and systemic aspects of reflecting by
encouraging an instrumental and mechanistic approach to reflection.
Through language, the field is culturally produced (Bourdieu 1993a) and I
now see that cultural and symbolic capital resides with the values of
18 See for example Duffy 2007, Gustafasson et al 2007, Tate 2004
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