ABSTRACT
Poetry, in the context of facilitated Reflective Practice groups, contributes to CME as a tool for reflection on ministerial practice, enabling the reimagining of work and identity, deepening reflection, fostering phronesis and connecting with tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1969). Implications for associated methodology in CME and CPD are outlined. Five ‘reflective stanzas’ bring research findings into conversation with cultural theory and Practical Theology: 1 Building on Baker’s 2007 adaption of Bhabha’s (1994) third space theory, Pryce theorises poetry as ‘a place of encounter’; 2 he draws on Maritain’s aesthetical epistemology of poetic knowledge (1953)to suggest how poetry in Reflective Practice deepens subjective identity, simultaneously and in conjunction with more profound sense of objects and things – an ‘alert receptivity’ (Veling 2005); 3 poetry deepens and extends the scope of perception, enabling Reflective Practice to become ‘prophetic seeing’ (Bennett 2013) which is connective, imaginative, compassionate and critical; 4 drawing on Coleridge’s theory of ‘abduction’, Pryce argues that ‘poetic gravity’ has capacity to submerge participants into imaginary worlds which are irreducible and hold multiple interpretations (Steiner 1997); 5 Reflecting on professional practice through poetry engages participants in a poetic challenge of reimagining self and others, a renewing ‘production of self’ (Steiner 1997) and ‘wisdom generating’ encounter with the other (Walton 2014).
