Grief Poetry

Legendary Black Veil Brides' founder and frontman Andy Biersack curated his favorite Edgar Allan Poe tales, presented here in their original language with supplemental materials.

When my companion of 34 years passed away, I went through an emotional upheaval. These tears of grief provided deeper insights and pearls of wisdom started falling on me in the form of poetry. If this personal sharing and baring my soul helps someone to come out of grief, it's a blessing.

This book is a collection of poetry that explores pain, love, and growth through the different phases of the moon: the new, the waxing, the full, and the waning. Each phase takes the listener through the stages of their own life, sparking an inner conversation. Each poem carries within it its own universe and its own whispers to the listener. It is simply planting the seedling of a constellation within all of those willing to taste the moonlight.

Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke's letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author's thoughts on death and dying as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.

From Finnish saunas and soppy otters to grief, grandparents and Kellogg's anti-masturbation pants, Slug is a book which holds a mirror lovingly up to the world, past and present, through Hollie's driving, funny, hopeful poetry and prose. Slug is about the human condition: of birth and death and how we manage the possibilities in between.

Celebrating James Tate’s work as it transcends convention, time, and everything that tells us, “No, you can’t do that,” Hell, I Love Everybody gives us the poet at his best, his most intimate, hopeful, inventive, and brilliant. John Ashbery called Tate the “poet of possibilities,” and this collection records forays into possibilities for American poetry’s future. With a foreword by Terrance Hayes, it is sure to give listeners new and old a lasting collection of favorites.

A powerful story of love, loss, and redemption. The slow fall from grace. The search for spirit. A journey back to light. A Week of Years takes listeners on a poetry-driven excursion into a young man's soul. Divided into seven days, each day serves as a life chapter. The author captures the pain of love lost and the struggle to find purpose and meaning beyond the end of innocence. A deeply personal journal, encompassed and enhanced by poetry that dances intimately with life’s many faces.

Saris and a Single Malt is a moving collection of poems written by a daughter for and about her mother. The audiobook spans the time from when the poet receives a phone call in New York City that her mother is in a hospital in New Delhi to the time she carries out her mother's last rites. The poems chronicle the author's physical and emotional journey as she flies to India, tries to fight the inevitable, and succumbs to the grief of living in a motherless world.

A young Latinx poet grappling with loneliness and heartache decides one day to bring Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla back to life. The séance kicks off an uncanny trip narrated by a Greek chorus of gossiping spirits as she journeys through a dead celebrity prom, encounters her shadow self, and performs karaoke in hell.

There are only two questions we have to answer in life – how to live and how to die. When we come to the end of the line, we all have to face death, our greatest enemy. But since my emergency cancer operation and chemotherapy, I now choose to face it on my own terms instead of just letting it happen. I will not only survive, I will l thrive. I am determined to prolong my life for as long as I can and to enjoy every moment to the fullest. This is my story in poetry. It is my reckoning with death and my journey into discovering the true meaning of life.

After receiving the news that in vitro would be her only hope for biological children, award-winning poet Emily Adams had to learn to live in a new world of needles, embarrassing tests, long waiting periods, and expensive doctor appointments.

Instagram superstar and poet Nikita Gill shares a collection of poems crafted as the world went into lockdown, tackling themes such as mental health and loneliness, and the precarity of hope. Through the life cycle of a star, she invites the listener to feel connected to the universe, taking us on a journey through the five stages of grief to the five stages of hope.

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves—from National Book Critics Circle Award winner, National Book Award finalist and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

Trigger warning—this book is about infant loss. Are you ready to even try to wrap your head around such a devastation? I lived through it. The words to say are still being written. I have edited dozens of books, and I still cannot reach the bottom of my emotions. This book exposes my broken heart with jaw-dropping honesty. I have defied my silence and shared my melanated story with eye-opening audacity.

In 2013, Neil Hilborn's performance of his poem "OCD" went viral. To date, it has been watched over 100 million times. Our Numbered Days is Neil’s debut full-length poetry collection, containing 45 of Neil's poems including "OCD", "Joey", "Future Tense", "Liminality", "Moving Day", and many, many never-before-seen poems.

This volume brings together for the first time all of the poems that appeared in Anthony Hecht’s seven trade collections, from A Summoning of Stones of 1954 through to The Darkness and the Light of 2001; it adds the remarkable work contained in his posthumously issued Interior Skies: Late Poems from Liguria of 2011; and it rounds this out with the best of the many poems which were left uncollected at the time of his death in 2004, the earliest dating from 1950 and the latest from 2001.

This book is a courageous account that you cannot help but resonate with because it reveals a very human condition: suffering. It gives you hope that trauma is not an end point; positive change is possible. Loanne developed a unique way of working through her journey using poetry. Her poems reflect different stages, from the depths of trauma and adversity to healing. Using her hallmark humor to deliver difficult messages, Loanne has tied her journey to poetry, with self-help information to provide a useful and practical resource that is heroically relatable.

A gorgeous collection of poems exploring womanhood, sisterhood, love, loss, and longing, for people who find catharsis in poems, or people who have always wanted to read or listen to poetry, but don’t know where to start.

When Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, “Yes. Me too.” For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety, and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.

Immerse yourself in the soul-stirring verses of Aubrey E. Drummond’s second poetry collection, Eating ‘Round the Toilet Stool. Following the success of Boy, Kant You Read, Drummond continues to captivate with his poignant reflections on love, life, grief, and death. Experience the world through the eyes of a black man, as he weaves tales of reality and fantasy into a tapestry of emotions. Don’t miss this journey into the heart of life’s complexities.