Staring at the Park: A Poetic Autoethnographic Inquiry (Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives) (Volume 16)

Winner of the 2016 ICQI Outstanding Qualitative Book Award Acclaimed qualitative scholar Jane Speedy’s world was upended completely after suffering a severe stroke when only in her late 50s. After returning home from the hospital, Speedy took to her iPad to write and draw as a way of making sense of her experience and to aid her recovery. The stunning, fragmented, poetic text and images comprising Staring at the Park depict the events of this difficult journey. It provides an alternative model of engaging the self in a research project in an evocative and artistic way. This highly original book: -uses the seemingly ordinary motif of the park opposite the author’s house as the catalyst for a wildly creative autoethnography;-includes three narratives of the author’s experience of staring at the park—an imagined murder mystery in the park, a realist ethnography of the park, and the life story (both imagined and real) of her facing her illness and recovery; -offers readers a poetic and performative inquiry into the author’s new reality. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Dedication 7 List of illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 9 Guide to textual style and protocols 10 Foreword: Staring with Jane 11 Introduction How and why I wrote this book 14 First plateau I wrote this book three times/txt 18 Second plateau A process of writing developed eventually or at least a method of/pdf 46 Third plateau We rattled through wrought iron gates/doc 94 Fourth plateau Early morning silence/docx 118 Fifth plateau Park haiku/winged/docx 140 Sixth plateau Epilogue/solitude is what I live with a constant lack of/txt 160 Notes 178 References 180 About the author 185 A Poetic Autoethnographic Inquiry The stunning fragmented poetic text and images comprising Staring at the Park depict the events of this difficult journey and an alternative model of evocative, artistic autoethnography.