Institutional schemes that offer financial and other support to carry out Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects have a valuable part to play in the personal and professional development of academic staff. We investigated the experiences of 12 recipients of the University of Edinburgh Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Scheme awards, drawing on a poetic inquiry approach in order to understand what that development meant to them. We found that poetic inquiry surfaced stumbling points and frustrations as well as triumphs and transformation and provided insight into the kinds of emotional and practical support required by participants. Unexpectedly, it also shed light on methodological issues for the researchers.