Grief Poetry

In the early 1990s, eight people living in a small conservative Florida town alleged that Dr. David Acer, their dentist, infected them with HIV. David's gayness, along with his sickly appearance from his own AIDS-related illness, made him the perfect scapegoat and victim of mob mentality. In these early years of the AIDS epidemic, when transmission was little understood, and homophobia rampant, people like David were villainized. Accuser Kimberly Bergalis landed a People magazine cover story, while others went on talk shows and made front page news.

A new volume of poetry from Robert Hass is always an event. In Summer Snow, Hass further affirms his position as one of our most highly regarded living poets. Hass’s trademark careful attention to the natural world, his subtle humor, and the delicate but wide-ranging eye he casts on the human experience are fully on display in his masterful collection. Touching on subjects including the poignancy of loss, the serene and resonant beauty of nature, and the mutability of desire, Hass exhibits his virtuosic abilities and expansive intellect, and tremendous listenability.

Sunsborne pitches darkly into another world. Often the world and characters is hazy, but ''Sunsborne'' is a true picture of the reality, conflict, and tensions. In the midst of a conflict torn situation there is love. Robin Wyatt Dunn presents an uncanny story of past and present, darkness and light. His way with language and its thick opacity create a stunning impact on the mind. If you are looking for ''meanings'', leave it. If you are looking for legerdemain stunts, leave it. But if you are looking for a fabulous world, in mythic settings, here it is.

Outside Gravity - Poems from a Personal Journey by Paul Burnore contains lyrical, crafted poems about loss, grief, and coming to terms with both death and life. These poems are seasoned by an international life and close observation about what really matters. In Outside Gravity, many poems grapple with the loss of a young son and the nearly crippling grief that followed. But this loss is balanced with broader reflections about death, along with a rebalancing of life containing love and the splendor of nature.

Countee Cullen was already a prominent literary figure when he published Color, his auspicious debut collection of poetry. In deceptively simple verse, and in harmony with lyric tradition rather than rebellion against it, Cullen covered such complex terrain as race, faith, mortality, sexuality, and identity. Cullen may be less well known today than his contemporaries, but his emotional candor, creative ambition, and impudent humor retain an unforgettable spark.

Jessica’s poems were written as a direct response to the sudden death of her husband four weeks before she was ordained priest in the Church of England, and many reflect her faith. These honest poems chart her journey from the first unbelieving days through anger, pain, withdrawal, survival, and eventual acceptance, and even joy. These poems show those who are grieving that they are not alone, and that there is hope for love, life, and laughter once again.

The poems of Dear October chronicle the evolution of the natural world and a daughter caring for her mother during the last year of her life. Months of the final year act as the scaffolding for the collection as they reflect on the 12 moons. The spirit of home, family, and mother-daughter relationship intertwine with the diversity of culture and ecology in Northern New Mexico.

This full collection of 56 poems reflecting on the concept of self, loss, fragility, and the constructs we must create in order to face the transient nature of life was named a finalist in the National Poetry Series, The New Issues Poetry Prize, The Four Way Books Intro Prize, and others.

We Are the Winter People is the collected works of Jenny Rowbory. The diverse range of poetry deals with love, loss, and the poet's ever-changing relationship with faith. Despite the struggles depicted within the work, it is an ultimately empowering collection, filled with strength, determination, and hope.

Honeybee is a collection of raw, honest, and intimate conversations with oneself that lead you on a journey of reflection. By writing truthfully about the intricacies of her experiences, Rideau’s first collection of work is one that will speak to the very depths of those who read it, inspiring a will to question, heal and empower.

Laurence McKeown almost died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison in the North of Ireland, following 70 days on hunger strike in 1981. In later years, he helped facilitate poetry workshops in the prison and co-founded a prisoners magazine. In this, his debut collection of poems, written both during his incarceration and in subsequent years, Laurence reflects upon his developing political consciousness, exploring themes of politics, family, comradeship, longing, desire, and love.

This exciting collection of free-form poetry with over 40 poems by Susan J. Farese, MSN, RN, is a sharing of both professional and personal thoughts and feelings. Susan is a strong advocate of the creative use of poetry to express the wonderment, frustration, dedication, and the love of nurses for their profession and their patients.

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Memoir. Suppose Muscle, Suppose Night, Suppose This in August explores how anxiety and escape can shape a life from childhood to adulthood. This hybrid of lyrical essays and poetry weaves a delicate thread across the country, through dreams and nightmares, euphoria and fear, and intimacy and distance, always with particular attention to form and language. With dreamlike imagery, a unique inventiveness, and emotional clarity, the collection dissects that which we are too afraid to touch in our waking hours.

In the searing poems of his new collection, Twice Alive, the Pulitzer Prize-winner Forrest Gander addresses the exigencies of our historical moment and the intimacies, personal and environmental, that bind us to others and to the world. Drawing from his training in geology and his immersion in Sangam literary traditions, Gander invests these poems with an emotional intensity that illuminates our deep-tangled interrelations.

The Secrets Behind My Eyes is a collection of poetry that follows a tween girl on her journey toward growth and maturity. It depicts her struggles with depression and anxiety, pain, loss of friendships, and love. It attests to forming a strong spirit in the face of trouble as well as exploring and validating the emotions that come along with the adventure of living.

Henry Normal's first poetry book in over 20 years, combining both new and selected poems from his previous performance work. This collection encompasses the subjects of love, death, loneliness, loss, human frailty, and other classic conversation stoppers. Narrated by the author.

With his dazzling ability to set words spinning, Amit Majmudar brings us poems that sharpen both wit and knives as he examines our "life in solitary". Equally engaged with human history and the human heart, Majmudar transfigures identity from a locus of captivity to the open field of his liberation....

The soul's journey is one that discovers the true nature of the divine and each soul is love itself. Peeling off all layers of reality, only awareness and love remain. My poems have healed and transformed me, by sharing them I hope they will heal and inspire others.

I am open; these words are my sutures. Shades is an attempt to reconcile who I am as a man, with a society that seems to be fluctuating and struggling at every turn. I show my encounters with family, religion, queerness, heartbreak, COVID-19, and politics. This is a look at my life in 2021, shown through poetry.

These Hands That Hold The World is a collection that deals with mortality, grief, and other matters of life. Through a mix of poetry and prose, Okoye expresses emotions of love and loss in a simple yet vulnerable way, sharing pieces of a broken heart while whispering to the listener that they are not alone. It is a brave polyphony of darkness and light and hope and heartache written in a language every soul understands.