This article explores the use of poetic inquiry in a transnational competence-building Shadow Play Project. Based on journals from four Nepalese preschool teacher educators, I present and interpret examples of data poems that portray the teachers' experiences of ownership in the project. My discussion intends to make explicit some aspects of the process of my search for the experience of ownership, coupled with a discussion of the search of a poetic form. I will further reflect upon the usefulness and challenges of poetic inquiry, given the use of English as a second or third language of the persons involved. Through this, I seek to develop a critical understanding of poetic inquiry as a way of understanding the experiences of others.