Lessons on Aging and Dying: A Poetic Autoethnography

by Ronald J. Pelias

Overview

Lessons in Aging and Dying: A Poetic Autoethnography captures the experience of being elderly and facing the end of life. The book presents a collection of poems about life’s end accompanied with narrative commentary. Organized as 73 lessons, they can be read as personal curiosities, momentary realizations, farcical departures, embarrassing fears, therapeutic encounters, experiential truths, hopeful conjectures, and inevitable destinations.

This book is a poetic inquiry that calls upon the lyrical in narrative and poetic forms to enter its subject. It also is an autoethnography that examines culture through the deployment of the self. Framed by introductory and concluding remarks, the book is organized around three developmental stages. The initial pages, "Beginnings," recognize the author’s birth into the end, a time when he knew he had arrived at a place beyond middle age. The middle unit, "From Here to There," displays an unsettled settling in, driven by an ongoing tension between resistance and acquiescence. It serves as a transitional stage into "Endings," the final section that anticipates death’s imminent arrival and speculates about how author might meet his end. Together, these units provide opportunities for identification, speculation, and resistance.

Published as part of the prestigious autoethnographic series Writing Lives: Ethnographic and Autoethnographic Narratives, and written by one of the foremost academics in the fields of communication and performance studies, this text is particularly suitable for students and researchers in subjects such as relational and family communication, gerontology and end-of-life care, and performance studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367621902
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/08/2020
Series:	Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives
Pages:	118
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ronald J. Pelias is currently teaching part-time in the theatre program at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. His most recent books are Writing Performance, Identity, and Everyday Life (2018) and The Creative Qualitative Researcher (2019).

Table of Contents

Beginning in the End Unit I: Beginnings Unit II: From Here to There Unit III: Endings Ending in the Beginning

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Darrell Owens, DNP, MSN, MS (University of Washington Medicine)
Description: This is a collection of poems about life's end accompanied by narrative commentary. Written to capture the experiences of being elderly and facing the end of life, it is organized in 73 lessons that can be read as personal curiosities, momentary realizations, farcical departures, embarrassing fears, therapeutic encounters, experimental truths, hopeful conjectures, or inevitable destinations. It is part of the prestigious autoethnographic series Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives.
Purpose: According to the author, the book is a poetic inquiry that calls upon the lyrical in narrative and poetic forms to enter the subject. He also describes it as an autoethnography that examines culture through the deployment of self. The book provides readers with opportunities for identification, speculation, and resistance to the subject. The book accomplishes these worthy objectives for what would be a very self-selected audience. For the targeted audience, the book serves as an informative and interesting read but would have little appeal to the broader palliative care audience.
Audience: The author believes the book is particularly suitable for students and researchers in subjects such as relational and family communication, gerontology, end-of-life care, and performance studies. As one who practices geriatrics and palliative care, I find the book has limited application to my specific practice. However, it could be of value to those in the fields of bereavement, grief, loss, and thanatology. Although the author was unknown to me, the book states that he has previously published in this area and lists him as one of the foremost academics in the fields of communication and performance studies.
Features: The organization of the book into three developmental stages allows readers to better grasp and discern meaning from the content. The format of "Lessons" makes for an easy and enjoyable read. Coming from a scientist frame of reference, I found the poems to be challenging at times, but the author's commentary is very thoughtful, enjoyable, and relatable. I felt as though I was getting to know the author better with each lesson, and by the end felt a connection with both he and his work. I find no shortcomings with this book. I do not see it as something specific for hospice or palliative care, but it has an appeal for a broader audience beyond healthcare.
Assessment: I have not come across any books like this one, which is not to say they are not out there. As a palliative care provider, I am interested in multiple domains of care — physical, social, emotional, and spiritual. This book crosses into several different domains, but none in depth. It is generally a book someone would read for pleasure rather than to enhance practice knowledge.

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