Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets

Louis Hoffman, PhD, is a faculty member at Saybrook University. Our Last Walk is his eleventh book, and his fourth book in the Poetry, Healing, and Growth series. He has also published numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is a past president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology and is currently the president of the Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling and Psychological Association. Dr. Hoffman has been recognized as a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Humanistic Psychology, the Society for the Study of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, and APA Division 52 (International Psychology). He serves on the board of The Humanitarian Alliance and The Coalition for Compassion and Action as well as on the board of editors for several journals. In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Hoffman maintains a small private practice in Colorado Springs. He is a husband, father, and avid dog lover residing in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Michael Moats, PsyD, is a private-practice clinical psychologist who primarily focuses on grief and trauma. With research interests in cross-cultural investigation of lessons through loss; experience and appreciation for working with hospice clients and their families; daily client engagement; experience with personal loss; as well as being an animal lover (propensity toward dogs), this project was a natural fit. Dr. Moats has also authored book chapters, articles, poems, and another book, Capturing Shadows.

Tom Greening, PhD, began writing poetry 70 years ago and has been unable to stop, despite being a busy psychotherapist in the same office for 58 years, editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology for decades, and professor at Saybrook, Pepperdine, and UCLA. An admirer of rhyming couplets by Shakespeare, Chaucer, Frost, Pope, Ogden Nash, etc., he has also occasionally been caught writing blank verse. A second, enlarged edition of his Poems For and About Elders is in press, as is an illustrated collection for children titled About Some Animals, endorsed by his dachshund. His collection, Words Against the Void, did not fill it, so a second edition is in press.