Black Pain, Black Voices: A Poetic Reckoning in Youth Pain Care

Abstract

Background: Understanding conversations about pain management between healthcare professionals [e.g., doctors, nurses, psychologists] and Black youth and their caregivers is critical, as these encounters are shaped by systemic racism within the Canadian healthcare system. Consequently, these conversations can render Black youth unseen or unheard within healthcare settings. Recognizing the importance of creative knowledge mobilization strategies, particularly arts-based approaches that center participant voices, the purpose of this work was to translate the themes of invisibility and dismissiveness experienced by Black youth and their caregivers into free-verse poems constructed exclusively from the words of Black study participants.
Methods: This arts-based knowledge mobilization piece extends the findings from a completed qualitative narrative inquiry study involving interviews with five Black youth (ages 12–18) and their caregivers about their experiences of anti-Black racism during pain management conversations with healthcare professionals (Matthews et al., 2026). The study generated two central thems: the healthcare system rendering Black youth as invisible and healthcare professionals dismissing Black youth. By using free-verse poetry as a distinct knowledge mobilization output rather than a data analysis method, the researchers re-presented the themes from this separate narrative study to ethically center participant voices and reveal emotional depths often silenced by conventional research. One researcher selected and arranged participant interview quotes into free-verse poems that described the themes generated from the narrative study, preserving cadence, repetition, and emotional nuance. The process was iterative and collaborative: the researcher discussed drafts with other research team members, which included a patient partner, and poems were shared with participants for clarification and approval to ensure fidelity to their voices.
Findings: The resulting poems foreground participants’ lived experiences of anti-Black racism in pain management conversations with Canadian healthcare professionals. The first poem, Disappearing Act, is voiced through youth perspectives and addresses invisibility. The second poem, Heavy Shoulders, is voiced through caregiver perspectives and addresses dismissal. The process of translating interview text into poetry highlighted the relational and embodied dimensions of pain, making visible dynamics of dismissal, invisibility, resistance, and advocacy that may be obscured in traditional narrative summaries. The poems give voice to participants in a way that complements narrative inquiry, allowing the reader to engage with the emotional and structural realities of their experiences.
Significance: Through their refusal of imposed boundaries, the poems display the impact of anti- Black racism experienced in pain management conversations. By positioning Black families’ stories as sites of resistance, this knowledge mobilization output demonstrates how free-verse poetry enables the sharing of knowledge through valuing embodied ways of knowing.
Output: As community-facing knowledge mobilization outputs, these poems were performed and presented at a conference (Matthews et al., 2025), demonstrating the potential of poetry as a meaningful medium for sharing qualitative health research findings while maintaining fidelity to participants lived experiences.