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University of
Delaware third-year Honors student Maggie Buckridge read what is known
as an I-Poem to an audience in a campus classroom recently, sharing her
research on the justice system and former prisoners’ re-entry into the
community in a novel way.
Buckridge is a member of a research team led by Chrysanthi Leon,
associate professor of sociology and criminal justice, women and gender
studies and legal studies. The team’s work encompasses such challenging
topics as crime, law, gender and justice — from the experiences of sex
workers to controversies about prison reform.
“The issues I research are often hard to understand, unpopular,
complicated, dense and just generally difficult to access or make
ourselves hear," Leon said.
But because she knows it’s important for the wider community, beyond academics and policy makers, to hear about this work, her team is using poetry to make their qualitative research accessible. They’ve turned hundreds of hours of interviews and focus group transcripts into I-Poems, using the participants’ own words to share their experiences.