Review: The reflexive role of Tanka poetry in domestic abuse research

I enjoyed reviewing this paper. It offered a novel insight into the role of Tanka poetry in qualitative domestic abuse research and contributes to reflexive methodology. Tanka’s emergence as clandestine love poetry in 7th-century Japan led to the author’s modern application in domestic abuse research. The five-versed Tanka derived from interview data is carefully crafted and supported by literary analysis. The author examines the ethical question of ‘Whose voice?’ in poetic research and discusses the professional and personal challenges, emotional labour and potential vicarious trauma in sensitive practice and research with abused women.

Value for practice is contingent upon future clinical and research application. The strength of this contribution lies in what the author describes as the short, sharp immediacy of the Tanka verse. Sharing the poems is useful for all persons needing cues to talk about domestic abuse. The poems are also a creative arts resource for trauma-informed healthcare. Poetic immediacy is evident here:

The abuse got worse

but checking my baby’s health

only brought heartbreak.

They took my children away,

I won’t go through that again.

The aesthetic appeal of Tanka is generated through the 5-7-5-7-7 rhythm. The authorial voice is all the more credible for the efforts made in positioning the researcher to and with abused women following disclosure. Reflexive analysis includes a focus upon researcher power relationships and professional challenges. Some limitations of Tanka construction are highlighted; empathy cannot be assumed, although it is a suggested feature of emotional sensitivity in representing women’s voices. The perpetrator voice is perhaps necessarily silenced and the author reflects on this. Tanka poetry is promoted as a possible participatory form of relational research.

Inspired by the author’s constructive guide I found myself attempting Tanka in quieter moments. And so this paper has already found a following. The Guest Editor suggested my writing a Tanka review by way of response and this is indeed a qualitative challenge. I aim for novice poetic justice in attempting to answer the call for dialogical participation. I can but partially represent some of the author’s insightful reflections on the role of Tanka in representing women’s domestic abuse through the studies referred to in the paper. In writing my Tanka review I signpost to and support the author’s reflexive brevity in advancing domestic abuse research.

A Tanka review

Tanka writes of love

Histories hidden secrets

‘Domestic Abuse’

Hard words to live alongside

Poetic forms of research

Whose story is it?

S/he whose task it is to tell

Violent hurt truths

Her voiced representation

Where is the Child in all this?

The research eye blurs

Draws distance in closer still

Innocence slumbers

Hear the whispered nonsense talk

Get the Child away from him

The listening task

Speak out or suffer silence

Witness and record

Qualitative researcher

You bear and mirror horror

The Tanka is free

To show the caged Child who sings

Grey lines between us

Woman- poet- researcher

Reflective rites of honour.