“…Love Me”: A Found Poem Exploring Black Women’s Romantic Relationships

Abstract

A found poem from a phenomenological exploration of Black women’s romantic relationship narratives and the author’s reflexive notes is presented. Drawing from Monica Prendergast’s vox autobiographia/autoethnographia and vox participare, the author considers the poem an autobiographia vox participare as it was sculpted from merging participants’ voices and the author’s personal reflections. In sculpting the poem, the author was attentive to craft and aesthetics but prioritized emotion and mending by selecting words and phrases to highlight the intensity of the experiences and sectioning the poem to represent BREATH-ing (i.e., balancing, reflection, energy, association, transparency, healing, and empowerment) as a healing process.