The Impossibility of Verse: Understanding Limited Research Engagement with Poetry

Abstract

This study explores the lack of academic research on poetry among postgraduate learners by examining their perception, experience, and interaction with poetry through their educational years. Using semi-structured interviews, the study identifies factors influencing their engagement and research interest in poetry. Findings reveal that learners perceive poetry as laborious, a view often reinforced by mechanical and exam-oriented teaching methods in early education. This pedagogical approach, coupled with a sense of poetry being an inaccessible form, leads to reduced personal reading and a lack of confidence in the learners' own interpretation. At the university level, poetry is often sidelined in favour of more accessible literary forms and modes of analysis as a primary research option. This diminished engagement limits the emergence of research questions, contributing to a cycle where less reading results in less research, perpetuating the gap in poetry scholarship. The paper calls for pedagogical reform to foster genuine appreciation and encourage poetry as an area for academic inquiry.