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Wrestling With the Angel: Literary Writings and Reflections on Death, Dying and Bereavement
Kent L. Koppelman
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Death, Value and Meaning Series, Dale A. Lund, Series Editor
Read the Foreword now
Exciting News!
IN PRAISE OF
"Wrestling with the Angel is a major addition to the classic works in dying, death, and grief. Kent Koppelman addresses issues faced by men in grieving the loss of a child, in a uniquely masculine approach to this topic. Unlike most grief and bereavement works, this book addresses male issues in a humorous yet thoughtful and compassionate way that offers men the strength and direction they need to survive with tremendous loss.
It is not often that a friend writes the book that you wish you had written, but in Wrestling with the Angel, Kent Koppelman has done just that. With the use of poetry, essays, a short story, and an intriguing play that was wonderful to watch performed but even better to experience in print, he addresses issues faced by men rather than the feminine approach found in most works. It is a powerful survival tool for men who are grieving and seeking a male approach to their grief and bereavement. Kent speaks directly to the fears, doubts, confusion, anger, and anguish that a father experiences on the death of his beloved son.
Each of us wonders whether our devastation following the death of a child can be survived. This book offers us hope with a powerful, beautiful self-study, providing sources of strength and solace for all those who read it. While clearly written from a male perspective, women should also read this marvelous book to better understand the special nature of a father's grief and his response to grief.
I have an extensive library of books on dying, death, and grief, but this is truly a unique treasure—not only enjoyable to read, but powerful in addressing my grief as a man."
—Dr. Gerry R. Cox, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Center for Death Education & Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
"Kent Koppelman addresses coming to terms with tragic loss and offers much good information with his own inimitable style of humor and poetic license, with beautiful poetry and prose and deep philosophic insight into tragedy and courage. It is a highly useful work, to be read again and again. If you purchase this book, it will be one that becomes well crumpled—as all good books are! Whatever you take from this book, some piece of it will be meaningful. For me, reading it has been meaningful both personally and professionally."
—Daniel Rudofossi, Psy.D., Ph.D., New York University, Author, A Cop Doc's Guide to Public Safety Complex Trauma Syndrome
"This is one of the most innovative and original books I have read on the subject of death and dying, one that will both stimulate and challenge the reader with compelling insights and perceptive understanding—an invaluable contribution."
—Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, D.H.L., D.D., Author, Living When a Loved One Has Died
ABOUT THE BOOK
Wrestling with the Angel addresses the human struggle to cope with death, dying, grief, and bereavement. The book includes essays, a one-act play, a short story, and poetry, including shape poems, rhyming, structured verse, and free verse. In the one-act play, an angel of death comes for a man who has lived an unexamined life and wants to explain why he is not prepared to leave. The short story offers a humorous look at a man who resists aging by continuing to view himself as the young man he once was. The diverse genres allow for different ways of exploring these issues, but all are intended to engage the reader's emotions as well as intellect. The writings incorporate reflections and quotations addressing common human issues related to our mortality and explore reactions to the loss of a loved one—whether expected, such as the death of an aging parent or someone with a terminal illness, or unexpected, such as accidental death. The final chapters examine how aging causes us to assess our lives and why preparing ourselves for death can enhance the quality of our life. This is a book with many more questions than answers, but the reader is invited to share in the process of finding answers. It is a book that requires the reader to be comfortable with ambiguity, because the reality it describes is often ambiguous—a reality that presents us with many choices but few certainties.
Intended Audience: Scholars, hospice workers, funeral home directors, hospital chaplains, ministers, and others who work with bereavement issues; classes in death education and classes for mental health professionals in death and grief; general readers who have suffered the loss of a loved one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Kent Koppelman graduated from the University of Nebraska, taught high school English and social studies in Nebraska, Connecticut, and Iowa, then earned his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. He accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where for 28 years he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in foundations, diversity issues, and multicultural education. In 1988, Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction selected him as Teacher Educator of the Year. This achievement was followed by a family tragedy in 1989, when his son, Jason, was killed in a car accident. Dr. Koppelman described his experience with loss and grief in his first book, The Fall of a Sparrow: Of Death and Dreams and Healing (1994).
Throughout his career, Dr. Koppelman has published essays and given presentations at state, national, and international conferences. His second book, Values in the Key of Life: Making Harmony in the Human Community (2001), consists of essays on the need to choose between conflicting values and the implications of such choices in everyday life. He has also written a textbook for college courses in diversity and multicultural education, Understanding Human Differences: Multicultural Education for a Diverse America (Allyn and Bacon, 2004; 2nd edition, 2007) and is now working on an anthology on diversity issues (Allyn & Bacon, spring 2010).
Dr. Koppelman retired in May 2007, and in the fall of that year, the College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University presented him with the Virgil S. Lagomarcino Laureate Award to honor his "distinguished achievement in the field of education." He and his wife, Jan, have been married for 38 years, and their daughter, Tess, is a broadcast journalist in Kansas City.
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Also by Kent L. Koppelman
Lucky Man: A Matter of Life and Death
Written and produced by Kent L. Koppelman with Paul Dominic Heckman.
This one-act play, originally performed for the International Death, Grief and Bereavement Conference at La Crosse, Wisconsin, June, 2007 is available as an mp3 download.
Format: MP3
Duration: 29 minutes
Click here for all the details.
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