Poetry is one of the most powerful tools we have when faced with difficulty, and perhaps, the inability to articulate the vast terrain of emotions that reside within us, as we navigate grief and loss.Â
Poets across time have done the hard work of being with grief, etching on the page, the breathlessness, and the highly personalized, yet universal experience that touches us all, death, loss, grief.
Loss comes in all forms, whether a loved one, job, part of ourselves, a country more and beyond.
Yet, no matter how universal loss is, we still stand on the precipice feeling quite alone.Â
Collectively, and culturaly in the US, we miss the mark on grief. Society tells us to get on with it, with the living of it. Return back to the world quickly, and swiftly.Â
Let the poems below in the collections allow you to stay a little while longer, to be true to your process of grief, to the ways you have been touched deeply, and broken open by loss.Â
Let these poems to serve you, and even if they just tug on your shirt sleeve, or tap you on the shoulder, to tell you– you are not alone. Poetry can support you and sustain you in the darkest of moments.Â
8 poetry Collections on Grief
Following are a few collections on grief in various forms.Â
Obit | by Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang writes a series of obituaries in “Obit”, which was written after the loss of her mother.
“This was not her first death. All her death’s had creases” Chang writes of her mother learning of her father’s death.Â
In his tender and poignant elegy for his son, “Gabriel: A Poem”, Edward Hirsch explores the depths of loss through the lens of a father. Parental grief is one of life’s most. difficult renderings. If you or someone you know has lost a child, this collection may offer a way to be with their grief, through lens of another’s.Â
The Art of Losing Poems of Grief & Healing | Edited by Kevin Young
“The Art of Losing Poems of Grief & Healing” edited by Kevin Young brings together a range of voices, and circumstances of loss. The anthology includes contemporary voices such as Rita Dove, Kim Addonizio, and Cornelius Eady, as well as poets from the Cannon across time and space, such as Rumi, Marianne Moore and others. Â
Poetry of Mourning : The Modern Elegy From Hardy to Heany | Jahan Ramzani
“Poetry of Mourning: The modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney” by Jahan Ramazini includes poems and elegies by Langston Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Ruch and more.Â
This collection includes a discussion which scores the lines between literary criticism and psychology.Â
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"I, Afterlife: Essay In mourning Time"
by Kristin Prevallet
“I, Afterlife: Essay In Mourning Time” is a collection that reaches the depths, and crucial questions of suicide. Written after Kristin Prevallet’s father took his own life, she explores loss in ways that help shape & reshape the reader. Whether you have experiences the loss of someone by suicide or not, this book takes you through a new understanding of the existential crisis of this type of loss.
A Grief Observed
by C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis wrote “A Grief Observed” after the death of his wife. Time and time again, the poingant and searing insights will give you pause, and make you stop in your tracks, no matter how recent your grief is, or if you have been carrying old grief in your heart through the ages. A must read for a deeper, connected, meditative, and contemplative experience of what it means to live, love, and be in the presence of grief.Â
A Lament for A Son
by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote “A Lament for A Son” after the loss of his 25 year old son due to a mountain climbing accident. He takes the reader through the moment he receives the phone call, and the journey of his grief, and love unfolds from here.Â
Seeing The body
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
A journey of a daughter in witness to the diminishing body of her mother, while exploring what it is to be in a body. “Seeing the Body” by Rachel Eliza Griffiths is both a study, observation, and homage to the vessel we live within; and the the vessel we depart from as we come to our final rest.Â
