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Pantoums for embodiment: a poetry-therapy approach to safety and belonging
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DOI：10.1080/08893675.2025.2606386.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Embodiment refers to the way we experience the world in and through our bodies. Our goal in this study was to explore how transgender and gender-diverse (TGGD) individuals describe embodiment through the collaborative creation of pantoums, a poetic form structured around repetition and return in group-based poetry-therapy sessions. Drawing on six focus groups with 14 participants and guided by principles of critical poetic inquiry, we analyze how participants articulated themes of vulnerability, belonging, resistance, and sacredness through poetry and translate these findings into practice via a replicable 60-90-minute pantoum session protocol, trauma-informed facilitation guidance, and feasible evaluation options (single-item embodied-safety rating, brief group-climate pulse, facilitator field notes). Embodiment emerged as a recursive, liminal, and relational space where prayer, grief, and agency coexist, with the pantoum's return, ritual language, and witnessing operating as mechanisms. Poetic inquiry and specifically pantoums function as both method and intervention in poetry therapy.
Keywords:
Poetry therapy
bibliotherapy
pantoum
transgender and gender-diverse (TGGD)
embodiment
group facilitation
trauma-informed practice
arts-based research
Journal
J
IF:
0.7
Papers:
36
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0
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Cited Papers