Attending to the Fact - Staying with Dying

This inspirational collection of poetry explores one of the most difficult and painful subjects to make sense of in writing - what it is like to care for the dying and the dead. Drawing on the authors’ own work in hospices, these poems take the reader on a journey that explores the experience of either supporting, or being, someone going through the physical changes and complex emotions that accompany ill-health and death. The poems themselves range from the savage to the sad to the sublime, encompassing a wide range of perspectives on illness, care, loss, grieving and comfort. They highlight the centrality of the human spirit. Attending to the Fact is an unusual source of experience, insight and self-recognition, both for professionals working with the seriously ill and dying, and also for patients and their families and all who have been touched by grief.