I-Poems
The I-poem is a feminist methodology proposed by Carol Gilligan designed to listen people’s voices by tracking the “I” statements in a medium of choice. To produce an I-poem, the researcher should to search for the “I” statement as “the first-person voice as it speaks of acting and being in the world” (Gilligan, 2015). In the From My Window project, we used several emails we all received from students, faculty, and Cuny administration across campus and disciples to produce small pieces of memory-artifacts that capture what was happening at that moment. The first one is based on student’s emails to instructors, the second one from instructors to students, and the third one based on CUNY formal communication(CUNY central, department heads, directors of offices etc).
As you will see, even though Students and Faculty were positioned differently in their instructional roles they clearly shared hardships and similar emotional experiences during the pandemic. However, CUNY I-poem however came out slightly different. Instead of only focus on the “I” pronouns, we decided to include the “WE” pronouns to compose this poem. The result is quite interesting and shows how CUNY environment was interwoven with events taking place nationally and at New York City.
Click bellow to read the poems.
Gilligan, C. (2015). The Listening Guide method of psychological inquiry [Editorial]. Qualitative Psychology, 2(1), 69–77.