Journal of Loss andT rauma, 9: 181^187, 2004 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc.

ISSN: 1532-5024 print=1532-5032 online DOI:10.1080/15325020490423460

EXPLORING FRIENDSHIP LOSS THROUGH POETRY

RICH FURMAN School of Social Work, University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Losing friendships are signicant events for people throughout their life span. In spite of the importance of friendships to psychosocial health, studies of friendships loss are not found in the literature. This article begins to address this gap through a qualitative study utilizing autobiographical poetry as data. This study exemplies expressive arts research methods which are becoming increasingly inuential to qualitative research. We are, at the root of things, social beings existing with one another in a state of symbiosis, interdependence, and community. (Goldstein, 1990, p. 33)

Friendships are essential for healthy development throughout the life span (Baumeister & Leary,1995; Hutter, 2001). In spite of its importance, friendship has been neglected when compared to research and scholarship regarding the necessity of the family and community to psychosocial health. Even less prevalent is scholarship dealing with the loss of friendship. In fact, a review of over 100 articles on friendship found none dealing signicantly with the concept of friendship loss.The purpose of the present article is to begin to address this gap. This qualitative study explores this phenomenon through the use of expressive arts research methods (Finley & Knowles, 1995). More specically, it does so through the use of autobiographical poetry and reexive commentary. Poetry has become an increasingly important tool in the research literature, spanning disciplines as diverse as management and organizational development (Brearley, 2000), education (Percer,1992), anthropology (Gee,1991), sociology (Richardson,1994), and social work (Poindexter, 2002).

Received 1 September 2003; accepted 17 September 2003. Address correspondence to Rich Furman, School of SocialWork, University of Nebraska-Omaha,60th and Dodge Streets, Annex 40, Omaha, NE 68182-0293, USA. E-mail: rfurman@mail.unomaha.edu

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Methodology Poems are powerful sources of data for several reasons. First, one of the strengths of poetry lies in its ability to convey complex and powerful emotions. The power of juxtaposing images can help convey conicting and dialectical emotions that often characterize complex experiences and relationships. When dealing with autobiographical data in research, the researcher must continually be reexive (Padgett, 1998; Patton, 2001). It is self-evident that researchers are biased. Reexive and honest researchers explore their biases and present them openly (Creswell, 1998; Constas, 1992). It is also key that researchers resist the temptation of trying to look good. Autobiographical data often contain information about the researchers fears, dicult emotions, and vulnerabilities. It is a valuable lesson for researchers to push themselves toward self-revelation. Indeed, how can we expect our research subjects to be open to us if we are unwilling to be open ourselves? The poems presented here are taken from a series of nearly 60 prose poems about my friendships.They were written over a period of 3 months, fromJune through August of 2003. Since the area of friendship has been a substantive area of my research, for the last 2 years I have written considerable journal notes about my own friendships. In June of 2003, I attended a poetry workshop at the Greyrock Writing Institute at Colorado State University (CSU), where I was an assistant professor. During the institute, I took a workshop on the vignette conducted by Angela Hodap, a recent CSU MFA graduate. During the workshop, we were asked to write a vignette about a person no longer in our lives. I started to think about a certain friend, and almost immediately wrote an entire prose poem. During the rest of the workshop, I wrote several other prose poems that seemed to just pour from me. Over the next several days, I realized that the prose poem would be the perfect vehicle through which to explore friendships. In another article, I explore in depth the value of the prose poem as a tool of inquiry (Furman, in press). In short, the prose poem, a synthesis of the poem and prose, allows for the compression, images, and metaphor of traditional poetry, yet utilizes the narrative structure of prose. The prose poem allowed me to tell the stories of my friendships, yet use evocative and emotionally charged language. The poems presented here are those that specically deal with experiences of loss in friendships. Poems dealing with friendship in general can be found in the previously cited article. Along with each poem are reactions to reading the poems. Each day for a week, I read each poem and reected upon the reading.

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I subsequently made journal notes documenting my reections. Some of these reections are shared here. The journal notes that were used were left unedited, so they may contain grammatically incorrect phrases. The Death of a Friend F|ve a.m. Reading Poems
Five a.m. reading poems as he ties up to shoot, straight horse sadness into his veins. As the world turns useless, like a spoon to a ditch digger. As the working ones wake to wasted rituals. As he nods deep, bowing to the oor like a psychotic yogi, remaining silent, leaving forgotten secrets to guess. As life breaths, we tick, tock and junk or school, rule or game in yesterdays playgrounds. Its all about equal.Y it isnt and we et all rage some strange mystical rhythm.

WhichWeW|ll Never Know

The wasted hope of the leaves, change colors amongst the dead, amongst the armies, villains, accountants, the forgotten gaze of what some suckers call god. T oday I found out that he died a year ago to this day. Needle in his arms. They said things had changed, no worries, his biggest problem deciding between two women who loved him. Now they must visit his stone, the one with his drawing etched on its face, like the smile of an ugly idiot, and lay owers that will turn to pulverized bits. As gravity pulls, and time expands, expelling us out of the gate, dazed and lost, eating the dust, of that which we shall never know.

I still think of him. Sometimes I look for my phonebook, or catch myself wondering why he does not call. Then I catch myself: Hes dead. It does not seem real. Ithink about friends whom I have not spoken to in some time. Do I have the luxury of waiting? What stops me from reaching out to people? Reading the poem again, I continue to think about my responsibility toward other friends.What does it mean? I think about the times I could have seen him more, other friends more, how will I feel if they die, and I have not been there for them, if I let the months slide by without contact? Loss, sadness. What is it that keeps us from making friendships more central in our lives? In missing him, I miss others who I have lost connection with. Blood is Thicker Than Water No Longer
Y saw company boogiemen behind every colonial arch, lurking through La Prensa ou pages, pale hawks gawking over small rodent revueltos. Y insisted brown hippy ou

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leather sandals were government issued as obvious as square boxed blue sedans, that they tried to blend with pot smoking druggies by the lake. Watch, you whispered, we will wind up with CIA rap sheets, be interrogated, maybe drugged when we return home. A slightly less scraggly Jewish Latino Irish Ginsberg, knew every conspiracy theory as intricate webs ensnarling villages of machine gunned spiders.We hitched on truck backs cushioned with red platanos, bounced through dirt miles on school buses protected by sad faced Marys, across Honduras, almost until Nicaragua. Separated for a few days of cheap rooms, rats and rum, found you in an Esteli hotel sweating revolutionary songs through laughing frantic eyeballs. Marched through the streets drunk on Cuban rum and hope. Y ears later, I almost married your sister, but as things ended badly between us, so did you and I.Y esterday marked the twenty-third anniversary of the revolution. Long since expired, I remember it as a lost comapanero I may no longer love.

Again, cheated. Friendships second to family bonds. Is this right? I dont know, but it is the way things are, or at least the way they usually seem to play out. I admired him so. He made me think politically, deeply about international issues. The connections between our communities and the world. Just his presence, the way he lived his life. Perhaps this is why for the last several years, I have been less politically involved, more inclined toward other pursuits. Clearly, friendships impact greatly on our behavior, upon who we are. Through friendship, we access parts of ourselves that we may not be in touch with. Losing a signicant friendship such as this, it seems I have lost, at least for now, a certain part of myself. What would he think if I tried to reconnect with him? I think it has been maybe 4 years since we spoke. I tried to send him an e-mail a couple of years ago, but I dont even know if that was an active account.What would I want to say? That I am glad he was my friend, that he meant something to me. How often have Ithanked people for being my friend, for what they have given me? I dont think we ever learn the vocabulary for dialoging with friends in this manner. Certainly not men. I look back at times I have thanked other men for their friendship, for their love. I remember telling another friend this, and he clearly was shocked. T ouched, but shocked. I remember him crying, and then saying that he never heard those words before. What holds us back? Fear? Of what? The End of a Friendship: Growing Apart? The Fence
Why did Mrs. Finch, our rst grade teacher assemble us at her home ? T mobilize o young outcasts? Was I a loser like you? I shudder now recalling years I would cry for no

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solid reason. Now, I know enough to at least rationalize.Thinking back, we formed and fried triangle shaped burgers, threw discoordinated Frisbees, teaching our hands to obey our brains.Those struggles connecting us, linked us together for twenty years, our friendship a fence which I opened to show you what, life? Y locked for years behind ou, your own Beverly Hills Berlin wall, a cell lined with velvet Elvises, rows of pristine records, virginity and masturbating into a terrycloth towel on your waterbed. I recall your Nicaraguan maid begging you: just grab life and take it Matt. But you were weak. Like when you strained for that one pull-up with all of us coaxing your chin upward. We stared into each others eyes for that second before you surrendered. Perhaps nothing I gave you was useful either. I am sorry that we are no longer friends, but mostly that you may never open that fence for anyone else.

OfY ou
A white paint chip wedges deep under my nail. Pain shoots upward as blood trickles down my nger. Stains white gold of wedding ring. A polluted river spoiling the sea. I am reminded of you. Pry out most of it, a small biting edge breaks o. Festers and more blood. I am reminded of you. A court jester oering asparagus sprigs to the queen for her sadness. I pry a pin under the nail. Finally dig it out. My jagged skin frayed. A red clot remains swollen underneath. My old friend no longer, I am reminder of you.

Its one thing to lose a friend to death. That feels at least natural. When friendships end though, I feel cheated. It seems unnatural, as if some unwritten taboo has been broken. Sadness and shame. Again, deep loss. Even a friendship as with the one I had with Matt, where I felt as if I received so little. He had so little to give, perhaps, but the ending rattles me. Abandonment. Again, feeling like I miss a ghost. Or perhaps not a ghost, but an image, a fantasy of what friendship could and should mean. Lifelong, enduring. Always.There is sadness; while I will make many new friendships in my life, I never again will have one that played with me in kindergarten. History is a powerful connector, provides a meaningful context for sharing. A Most Recent Loss Each time I write about friendships, I am forced to reconsider what each relationship means, and how I relate to friends. The other night, I decided to call several old friends I have not heard from in a while. Some friendships are that way, the connections transcend time or space. With others, sometimes time and distance leads to diminished contact. Such is the case with Larry, a former student of mine while I taught at a community college on the East Coast. Larry was an older student, in his late 40s. Having received a liver

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transplant 5 years before, Larry wanted to be a transplant coordinator. After a year and a half of school, shortly before I moved west, Larry had to take a semester o due to liver problems. We exchanged several e-mails, and talked on the phone a couple of times during the year after I moved. Not hearing back from him, I returned to the day-to-day routines of my life. After not having heard from him for slightly over a year, I called yesterday. Larrys mother-in-law informed me that Larry had died last winter. Hanging up the phone, I felt a deep sense of shock and shame. Shame was my dominant feeling: shame that I was not a better friend, that I did not try harder to stay in touch. Clearly, he was very sick for a long time, and I did not make the extra eort. Now, I have no chance to reconnect, no chance to be there for him, as a friend. Now, I have to mourn the death of someone who was an important person in my life. I have to contend with more than his loss, but the concomitant feelings that are triggered by the loss of meaningful friendships. I present the following poem, written several months before his death, in honor of Larry. While traditional academic articles usually end with a conclusion, I will end with this poem. The loss of friendship is a little understood phenomenon. Subsequent research is needed to clarify individual differences in regard to how people respond to the loss of a friend, as well as the social construction of friendship loss. For now, just this: Respect
A hair dresser before, he traveled the globe following lines of powder and pills with his wife, his assistant, his model. That was before his liver blew like a truck tire slamming down the interstate, maybe too much speed, or just poorly made material. Perhaps fate slammed her foot on the breaks moments before certain wreck. Now fty, he pops more pills than ever before, tranquilizers to keep his ever rejecting liver silent. Jaundice skin melting easily in the sun, we watch a lot of movies. Mostly, juvenile comedies, gentiles in apple pie gags, awkward sex in backs of minivans with the PTA moms, stupid ip lines that we repeat incessantly. Of course, the ubiquitous teenage accidity. The more inane, the more fullled. The fty-year-old ex-hair dresser, his unsteady gait and orange din, and his college professor. Also ate kennels of heart attack chili dogs, grilled with grease and onions, covered in sourkraut, jalapenos and quasi cheese spread. Spicy food is poison to his liver. But we do not speak of this, instead gossip about the women in my class. We speak of breasts we cannot have, legs we would not want, and mouths we are glad only speak to us in sentences few.They tell him things I am not meant to hearhe loves to watch me blush.We have not spoken often since I moved west, and he was too weak to y out for my wedding. A stroke late last summer, he has death on his mind. After speaking to him on the phone, I am driven by my car, nd myself at the nearest fties-style diner.Two chili dogs, lots of peppers. I power down the rst in seconds.The second more slowly, let the cheese drip o my face. Close my eyes as I sense the chilies

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working their way into my body. For dessert, order a slice of apple pie, watch it sit perfect in the middle of the table. Take a bite, let memories wash over me. Just out of respect.

References
Baumeister, R. F. & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497^529. Brearley, L. (2000). Exploring the creative voice in an academic context. The Qualitative Report, 5(3=4). Retrieved January 17, 2003, from http:==www.nova.edu=ssss=QR= QR5-3=brearley.html Constas, M. A. (1992). Qualitative analysis as a public event: The documentation of category development procedures. American Educational ResearchJournal, 29, 253^266. Creswell, J.W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gee, J. (1991). A linguistic approach to narrative. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 1, 15^39. Finley, S. & Knowles, J. G. (1995). Researcher as artist=artist as researcher. Qualitative Inquiry, 1, 110^142. Furman, R. (in press). The fence. Aiga. Goldstein, H. (1990, Winter). The knowledge base of social work practice: Theory, wisdom, analogue, or art ? Families in Society, pp. 32^43. Hutter, H. (2001). On friendship. Contemporary Sociology, 30, 579^581. Patton, M. Q. (2001). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Padgett, D. (1998). Qualitative methods in social work research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Percer, L. H. (1992). Going beyond the demonstrable range in educational scholarship: Exploring the intersections of poetry and research.The Qualitative Report, 7(2). Retrieved March 31, 2002, from http:==www.nova.edu=ssss=QR=QR7-2=hayespercer.html Poindexter, C. C. (2002). Meaning from methods: Re-presenting narratives of an HIVaected caregiver. Qualitative Social Work, 1, 59^78. Richardson, L. (1994). Nine poems: Marriage and the family. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 23, 3^13.

Rich Furman, is an assistant professor in the School of SocialWork at the University of Nebraska ^ Omaha. He previously was an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. He has taught throughout the social work curriculum, but currently teaches mostly clinical courses.Dr. Furman has worked in various roles in social work practice and education for 15 years. He was the founding director of Childrens Outreach Services Programs, Resources for Human Development, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.