Poetry as a resonant method for multi-sensory research

Abstract

This article explores the potential of poetry for attuning to and expressing resonance in multi-sensory geographies. I argue that poetic inquiry can provide novel ways to address sensory geographies, by shifting the focus from individual senses to a more integrated understanding of how sensory phenomena resonates across bodies and spaces. By doing this, poetry also becomes a resonant method that allows one to merge different subjectivities and express pluriversal worlds. I draw upon Erlmann's discussion of resonance as a way to overcome three dichotomies regarding knowing and the senses that have been recently contested in sensory geographies, namely the dichotomies between reasoning and the affective, the external and internal, and attention and distraction. In order to demonstrate the potential of poetry as a resonant method, I present a poetic exploration of the life of the Staines Reservoirs. The findings of this experiment show that poetry can be a resonant method when the geographer-poet is attuned to the way in which thinking and feeling are intertwined, the ways in which the senses mix themselves in the experience of the world, and the ways in which the world resonates within bodies and bodies echo in the world.