This study introduces bilingual poetic inquiry as a qualitative method for exploring the creative and intercultural dimensions of doctoral music education. Drawing on a small-scale study conducted by two researchers, this study investigates how Chinese doctoral students in music navigate artistic creativity, multicultural environments, and academic expectations in Aotearoa New Zealand. The focus is on the affective, embodied, and relational aspects of doctoral life in the creative arts—dimensions often overlooked by conventional acculturation models and linear frameworks.Grounded in a multi-layered theoretical framework—including Bakhtin’s dialogism, Bhabha’s Third Space, Bhatia’s dialogical self, and Bishop’s relational pedagogy—the study adopts a hybrid, arts-based methodological design that combines qualitative case studies with poetic inquiry. Poetic inquiry is particularly suited to textual material generated by doctoral students in music, as it mirrors the expressive processes through which artists make sense of the world. Rather than reducing data to abstract themes, it foregrounds subjectivity, honours participants’ voices, and resists over-interpretation. Just as music organises sound into expressive form, poetic transcription shapes participants’ words into rhythmic, aesthetic patterns that highlight tone, silence, rhythm, and emotional texture.The study draws on Glesne’s poetic transcription methodology and Faulkner and Vincent’s framework for rigorous poetic inquiry, integrating cross-cultural reflexivity, documented researcher positionality, and co-reflection sessions with participants. A bilingual process transforms interview data into poetic representations. Interviews conducted in Mandarin are first transcribed and poetically rendered in the original language by a native Mandarin-speaking researcher. These texts are then collaboratively translated into English, with a native English-speaking co-researcher refining the final versions for clarity and artistic integrity. This process preserves linguistic nuance and emotional resonance while avoiding the flattening effects of literal translation. Poetic texts are returned to participants for validation and reviewed by an external ‘critical friend’ to ensure ethical rigour and trustworthiness.While poetic inquiry has gained traction in arts-based research, its application in bilingual, intercultural doctoral contexts—particularly within music education—remains underexplored. This study addresses that gap by demonstrating how bilingual poetic transcription can illuminate the affective, linguistic, and cultural complexities of doctoral life. It contributes a novel methodological approach that honours participants’ artistic and cultural identities and expands the possibilities for knowledge generation in intercultural music education research.