title: Taking care of grieving through poetry: memories of palliative care's presence or absence.
abstract: Families navigate loss of loved ones in a number of ways, including the creation of narratives of family experiences during the patient's illness and death. Robinson (2004) suggests that grieving family members create poetry together. Using a version of this method, the author processes losses by responding to the poems her husband wrote about the illnesses and deaths of a friend and several family members. Each poem is followed by a letter in which the author addresses the main character of the poem in order to provide new perspectives on her identity and her memories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Room 227, Norman, OK 73019, USA. nance.cunningham@ou.edu
authors.forename: Nance
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cunningham
mesh_terms: D001293:Attitude to Death; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care; D011037:Poetry as Topic