Let’s play with research metaphors for a while…
Perhaps a journey, far from comfortable domicile,
Exciting and fun, with a little trepidation,
Whether ‘cross a well-known or brand-new nation.

Planned expedition of agreed venue and duration
Or eye-opening, uncertain, distant exploration?
A novel route to an oft-climbed summit,
Seeking new lands or a trip to a distant comet?

I prefer the freedom of off-road tracks;
Outback bumps, rattling corrugation and gaping cracks
Slow-down all but the most incautious,
Unsteady progress makes even the strongest stomach nauseous.

Virgin territory akin to a new way of looking…
Conceptual loops represent scholarly scrapbooking.
Searching for insightful links ‘cross the disciplinary boundary,
Creating first steel in an inspired iron worker’s foundry

OK, it’s not always quite safe to play with new ideas.
Research informants offer worrying native pharmacopoeias
Used symbolically to expand axiological guidelines
As the thrill of disquiet, espying bullet holes in nearby park signs.

Will armed poachers come tonight after sunset
To my scholarly campsite, alone save an anecdotal vignette?
Despised by reviewers, sharing solitary subjectivity,
‘Obviously’ lacking credence, rigour and relativity.

But there’s joy in unpredictable surrounds,
Unsure what makes the spooky night-time sounds.
No motel, café or supermarché for rest and succour
Sleeping in a swag with nowt but bland canned tucker.

So many scrub and scholarly hazards to perplex –
Sharp rocks, soft spots, roadkill, gun-toting bogan-rednecks,
Invasive weeds, feral foxes and tourist ballyhoo…
But then the joy of discovering some drily indicative wombat poo.

Yes, there is sign of something to make it worthwhile – 
The risk and discomfort of my bizarre, chosen lifestyle.
There IS life in the shadows of my research journey
Though it’s not much celebrated in today’s competitive academic tourney. 

Notes:

I often spend a lot of time trying to craft a poem, going through multiple drafts before I share it with anyone. This particular one came to me quite quickly and I only tweaked it a little, just once, after drafting the original version. I made a note of it as a possible theme a few months ago during a discussion with a PhD student at a school research day. I then left it untouched until a few days ago when I built it into this form in one evening. It might seem rather roughly constructed, but I think it says (to me at least) what I wanted it to.

I almost feel I should apologise for the obscurity of my reference to wombat poo… almost. On this occasion, the metaphor draws on my experience of ethnographic fieldwork of conservation volunteers who were conducting citizen science into South Australia’s Southern Hairy Nosed Wombats (so I was researching other researchers conducting their own research) and wombat scat (or droppings) was much talked about and valued.