Integrating Research

Last year, I discovered that my grandfather (who had a shady past of bank robbing and possible mob connections) and the rest of my family were great fodder for poetry. I come from immigrants--I don't think anyone I'm related to was in the US before 1900--and I think there's a great wealth of poetic "stuff" (for lack of a better word) in my poor, old-world, non-English speaking ancestors trying to make a life in Pittsburg and Cleveland for the last 100 years. However, as I started trying to write these poems, I realized I just don't know enough. My family is pretty tight-lipped about our history, so I'm going on bits of stories and rumors. So, it seems research is the next logical step.

Unfortunately, I find myself caught up in other things--really tough classes last spring, trying to be a good teacher now--that have prohibited me from doing that research. So I've turned my family series into a series of childhood poems. I like the childhood poems, but I want very badly to go back to my original impetus.

Earlier this week, I decided to do a search on the Ohio State Penitentiary, where my grandfather lived from 1946-1956. Holy crap, does that place have a sordid and sad history! Riots, over crowding and deplorable conditions...most during the time when my grandfather was there (at it's worst, the prison held somewhere around 5000 inmates, and this was in 1955). Also, in the 1860's, it was a POW camp, and in 1930, there was a fire that killed hundreds of inmates and guards. Ghosts, perhaps? This is exactly what I was hoping to find. Yet, now, as I try to put a poem together in my head (I haven't gotten to paper/keyboard yet) I have no idea how I will combine what I've read with what I know and remember about my grandfather. I'd have no problem writing a research paper...but how does one go about writing a research poem?