Poem Houses

This week I stumbled across poem houses. There they were, waiting in an article in a journal that had been on my shelf for the better part of the year. And I had no idea until I pulled out a number of these journals to give to a student and idly flicked through them. Luckily said poem houses caught my eye and consequently that one journal issue didn’t make it to my student’s bag, but my own instead.

As explained in ‘Sense making through poem houses: an arts-based approach to understanding leadership’ by Louise Grisoni and Brigid Collins (Visual Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, March 2012, 35-47), poem houses have been developed by Brigid Collins as “three dimensional artefacts combining visual interpretation with poetic text and which hold a special significance for the maker.” (35) Using examples and testimonials from a workshop on leadership development, the article is a fascinating insight into using this format/genre as a focus for reflection. And of course I read this wondering how it could be applied in my learning and teaching. I will definitely try to make my own one of these days, but in the mean time, you can see some examples here.

I have also managed to find some more writing by both Collins and Grisoni, which might be more food for thought.