Grief Poetry

Magical Negro is an archive of black everydayness, a catalog of contemporary folk heroes, an ethnography of ancestral grief, and an inventory of figureheads, idioms, and customs. These American poems are both elegy and jive, joke and declaration, songs of congregation and self-conception. Focused primarily on depictions of black womanhood alongside personal narratives, the collection tackles interior and exterior politics - of both the body and society, of both the individual and the collective experience.

Sometimes lovers enter a relationship with the best of intentions but wind up in a place far from love. Sometimes poets attempt love poems, simple and pure, but.... Over breakfast, a husband trying to deny creeping out on his wife the previous night can't help but give hints about the creepy things he really did. On a beach, a man minding his own business is accosted by a pretty woman before a strong tide embarrasses them both. A tone-deaf proposal for marriage ends in murder. A traditionally arranged marriage spins into a deranged and surreal nightmare. These aren't anti-love poems. These are poems born and burned out of love.

The tradition of Victorian mourning jewelry began with Queen Victoria after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Without photography, mementos of personal remembrance were used to honor the dead so that their loved ones could commemorate their memory and keep their spirits close. Ashes were placed within rings, and necklaces were made out of hair, and the concept of death photography, small portraits of the deceased, were often encased behind glass. Wytovich's poetry explores the horror that breeds inside of the lockets, the quiet terror that hides in the center of the rings.

Steven Bates fires off another salvo of poems. He searches for and ponders the mutual, common ground. All these poems were written after his retirement from 18 years of military service. He shares his thoughts on depression, and life in general.

Los poemas de El jardinero tocan temas utilizadas en la poesía sánscrita más antigua: la juventud y la vejez, la riqueza y el despojo, el amor, la muerte y el sexo. La sugerencia es una de las mayores cualidades de esta poesía.

Drum-Taps is a collection of poetry written by Walt Whitman during the American Civil War and first published in 1865. Drum-Taps contains poems that bear witness to the violence of war.

2015 World Poetry Slam Champion and Woman of the World co-Champion Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud presents her hauntingly beautiful debut poetry collection. Brimming with rage, sorrow, and resilience, this collection traverses an expansive terrain: genocide; diaspora; the guilt of surviving; racism and Islamophobia; the burdens of girlhood; the solace of sisterhood; the innocence of a first kiss. Heart-wrenching and raw, defiant and empowering, Sisters’ Entrance explores how to speak the unspeakable.

A breathtaking collection of love poems from one of our great contemporary poets - stunning odes of obsession, loss, and the desire for a renewed self.

Brooks Haxton has been writing for years about the connections between human beings and the creatures we find fascinating. Mister Toebones, his new collection, draws its title from a nickname Haxton gives to a daddy longlegs he sees at his father's grave. In another poem, the poet and his mother, in search of a swimming hole, find a copperhead rearing to strike, about to birth its live young. Elsewhere, waist-deep in the Mississippi River, under the Atlantic Ocean, on the cracked ice of a frozen pond, even in outer space, the poet explores forces that seem past endurance.

This serves a collection of poems written by service members that were deployed to Iraq. These poems were written during deployments overseas.

Quietly reflective, the beautifully written poems in this slim volume offer a welcome respite from the noisy insistence of modern life. The language, now simple and direct, now rich in associations, double-meanings, and imagery, has its own natural rhythm and appeal regardless of subject and rhyme.

I wrote most of these poems when I was in a bad place, a dark state of mind that eased its hold when I wrote them down, and so these poems were created, they maybe disturbing for most and very intense, but if you have been in a dark place too, you may understand.

Innermost is a collection of both free-verse and fixed-verse poetry written over a period of half a decade about every emotion felt inside the human heart. These poems will transport you to a whole other world within the innermost depths of the human soul.

National Book Award finalist, Iraq war veteran, novelist, and poet Kevin Powers creates a deeply affecting portrait of a life shaped by war. Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting captures the many moments that comprise a soldier's life: Driving down the Texas highway; waiting for the unknown in the dry Iraq heat; writing a love letter; listening to a mother recount her dreams. Written with evocative language and discernment, Powers' poetry strives to make sense of the war and its echoes through human experience.

Wraith Like Me is the journey of a woman from childhood through her mid-30s. These strange poems chronicle her experiences with trauma, abuse, anxiety, and a bottomless rage. The words begin the trails of healing, hope, and self-acceptance (a story that will continue in future poetry collections).

This poetry collection deals with life, death, love, and the loss of a beloved, albeit complicated, parent.

Adam Scott Campbell survived a life-threatening brain tumor at age nine that recurred as a young adult. When thereafter he faced death again, he was ready for heaven. Instead, heaven came to him. Visited by his Angel, she filled him with the strength, courage, hope, and life to continue on with a purpose--to share that we are never alone and that we are stronger than we know.

Paper Heart is a collection of poetry stemming from the places where light and darkness have shaped who Jennifer LeBlanc is as a writer. Written over years of introspection, love, pain, and hope, each poem is a placeholder for something that held her mind for either a bright moment or a dark hour.

You will confront your darkest fears and beckon them to the surface of your mind. Nightmares will cause conflict between the charcoal days and bleak nights. With a splash of colorful, sweet sentiment to contrast the shadows, Dark Days will leave a twisted, yet merry mark on your soul.

Pain and trauma are what makes us human, arguably unifying us as a species. Finding our way out can be traumatic itself at the best of times, always confusing and so often riddled with false starts and mistakes. Through poetry, this collection will make you cry, laugh, empathize, question, and eventually help you find your way through and out of that dark place. From someone who has experienced the journey, and put in the years of study and work required to build a tool set to make the needed progress toward better mental health—the time is right to share this work with the world.