Displacement: A Poetic Inquiry

Tom Crea is a social work professor at Boston College who, among other projects, has conducted research with urban refugees in South Africa and unaccompanied children recently reunified with families in Boston. This booklet represents a collaborative, iterative attempt to re-contextualize some of his work through poetry-writing and, in collaboration with graphic designer, Karen Hsu of Omnivore, visual representation of qualitative and quantitative research data.

The booklet consists of three sections: a collection of Tom’s poems interspersed with free-verse narratives that he assembled from interview texts; word frequencies from one of the sections of free-verse narratives followed by explanations of the project; and redacted/obscured transcripts. It also includes a free-floating, displaced card containing data and text from UNHCR’s website.