Poetic Portraits of Older Women in the Great Black Swamp

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Oral history and poetic portrait with Jean Ladd

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Jean Ladd along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Ladd's life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Deb Weiser

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Deb Weiser along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Weiser's life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Laura Schutze

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Laura Schutze along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Schutze's life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Melissa Shaffer

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Melissa Shaffer along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Shaffer's life.

Oral history interview with Lisa Chavers

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Lisa Chavers, along with a poetic portrait, an oral history interview transcript, and images documenting Chavers' life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Pam Day

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Pam Day along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Day's life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Doris Herringshaw

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Doris Herringshaw along with accompanying poetic portrait, oral history transcript, and images documenting Herringshaw's life.

Oral history and poetic portrait with Barb Sartain

Poetic Portrait Project oral history interview between Sandra Faulkner and Barb Sartain, along with a poetic portrait, an oral history interview transcript, and images documenting Sartain's life.

The Poetic Portraits project was a collaboration between older women in Wood County, Ohio, Sandra L. Faulkner, Professor of Media and Communication, Phil Beskid, Associate Teaching Professor in the School of Media and Communication, and Michelle Sweetser Head Librarian from the BGSU archives.

The purpose of this project was to co-construct nuanced portraits of older women in Wood County and their experiences across the life course. Faulkner used oral history interviews and poetic inquiry to gather older women’s life stories, specifically poetic portraits and poetic transcription. “Poetic inquiry is the use of poetry crafted from research endeavors, either before project analysis, as a project analysis, and/or poetry that is part of or that constitutes an entire research project” (Faulkner 2017, p. 210). The interviews provided an opportunity for older women to tell their story in their own words, deciding what was important to share, what stories they wished to emphasize, and how they presented themselves (Anderson & Jack, 1991, McAdams, 1996).

During fall 2023, Faulkner conducted oral history interviews with 9 older women (i.e., 60+) in the Bowling Green area focusing on: 1. What their lives were like; 2. What contributions they have they made to the their community; 3. How their relationship contexts, situations, and life circumstances influenced their experiences; and 4. How their experiences across the lifespan shaped their sense of self. Phil Beskid recorded and engineered the interviews in the Kuhlin Center sound studio at BGSU. Faulkner used the recordings and her notes from the interviews to create poetic transcripts and poetic portraits re-presenting women’s stories. Poetic transcription “involves crafting transcripts in a caring and relational manner to foreground…stories, create verisimilitude and focus on the essence of the experiences, create coherent storylines, and create evocative text” (Ward, 2011, p. 355). It is a method of turning interviews into transcripts in ways that preserve participants’ speaking styles and language (Faulkner, 2020). A poetic portrait is a series of poems and collages that capture the spirit, contours, and specific nuances of an interviewee's life story (Faulkner et al., 2021). Michelle Sweetser archived the recording, poetic transcript, and poetic portrait of each woman in the BGSU libraries.

This project was funded by a fellowship from the Institute for Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University.

Participants

Pam Day, 67 years old	Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Laura Schutze, 76 years old	Monday, July 24, 2023
Barbara Sartain, 76 years old	Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Doris Herringshaw, 74 years old	Thursday, July 27, 2023
Melissa Shaffer, 71 years old	Wednesday, August 9, 2023
Deb Weiser, 70 years old	Friday, August 11, 2023
Lisa Chavers, 64 years old	Friday, August 18, 2023
Jean Ladd, 80 years old	Wednesday, September 6, 2023
Fern Larking Kao, 82 years old	Tuesday, October 24, 2023

References

Anderson, K., & Jack, D. (1991). Learning to listen: Interview techniques and analyses. In S. Gluck & D. Patai (Eds.), Women’s Words. The Feminist Practice of Oral History (pp. 11-26). New York: Routledge.
Faulkner, S. L. (2017). Poetic Inquiry: Poetry as/in/for Social Research. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Handbook of Arts-Based Research (pp. 208-230). New York: Guilford Press.
Faulkner, S. L. (2020). Poetic Inquiry: Craft, Method, and Practice, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Faulkner, S. L., Watson, W. K, Pollino, M. A., & Reese, J. (2022). Poetic Portraiture as Critical Arts-Based Pedagogy and Methodology: Older Women’s Relationships through the Lifecourse. Qualitative Inquiry, 28(10), 987-997. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004221097058
Gerstenblatt, P. (2013). Collage portraits as a method of analysis in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12, 294-309.
McAdams, D. (1996). Personality, modernity, and the storied self: A contemporary framework for studying persons, Psychological Inquiry, 7(4), 295-321.
Ward, E. (2011). “Bringing the Message Forward”: Using poetic re-presentation to solve research dilemmas. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(4) 355–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800411401198