Does contemporary poetic inquiry reflect an inherent tension between the aims of empirical methods and the aesthetic experience of lived poetry? Despite its increasing importance over recent decades, poetic inquiry remains an under-appreciated and misunderstood methodology. Accordingly, this chapter examines some fundamental presuppositions about the relationship between poem and self that may serve to limit the autoethnographic insights available through this rewarding methodology. In doing so, I analyse the often fraught relationship among poetry, author and method to promote a richer and more textured understanding of the role of the “captive poem” in contemporary autoethnography. To illustrate these themes, the chapter draws on poems and vignettes arising from my experience as a newly tenured academic trying to come to terms with institutional politics and identities.