Grief Poetry

Cancerwords is a record of Glenn Peirson’s three-year battle with a rare sinus cancer. Diagnosed at stage 4, Glenn did his elegant utmost to stay here for his wife and children, the joys of his life. As mother of this remarkable man for all seasons, I was seized by a need to write poetry and take photos on my prayer-walks. These media became my prayer forms. For me, they reached through the madness to a silence where pain is transformed into resilience. I was sustained and enabled to be what Glenn, Mary, Theodora, and Henry needed me to be.

Attending to one's mother while she succumbs to cancer is no easy feat as this poetry chapbook will attest to.

Stephen C. Pollock's poetry collection Exits explores the beauty and frailty of life, the cycles of nature, and the promise of renewal. Musical and multilayered, the poems in Exits have drawn comparisons to the poetry of Seamus Heaney and the sonnets of William Shakespeare.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to the poem Femicide: When Friendship Meets Brutality today.

In Tired Wonder, Eric Overby offers a personal account of his last two years. 2021-2023 has seen both the continuation of a struggle with infertility and the birth of his daughter. Eric also changes careers and struggles with his new identity and the changes that come along, ultimately leading him to circle back around and return to it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On Being Human is a compilation of original poems by Ghazala Alam. Written in modern Urdu and English, each poem is introduced by an English preamble detailing her inspirations and insights. Accompanied by English transliteration, her poetry is informed by her experiences as an immigrant, woman, and a person of color.

With flowing rhymes, intoxicating free verse explorations, and vivid imagery, LIFE AS IT IS & OTHER POEMS will take you on a powerful journey through life and loss, depression and self-acceptance, nature and the universe, and everything in between.

In this poetry collection "Ways to Say Goodbye", Anne Kellas takes the listener through dream sequences, abstract and imagistic poems and deeply personal poems of loss. The effect is a cumulative building of a quiet world of reflective resilience as the poet tries out possible ways to do what is almost impossible – to love and to say goodbye.

From the author's leather-bound book kept locked at the base of his bed, we journey through New York City, chilled farmlands and isolated cabins in the woods. Calloway's solid masculine approach is refreshingly original. We have all felt the warmth of the world around us and we have all felt the cold. This author holds our hand as he leads us down rich passageways of the psyche.

In Conversation is a personal milestone in Janice Whyne's journey of rediscovering her creative self. She sees poetry as a means of self-expression. A conduit and a safe space for our emotions, feelings and lived experiences. The poems in In Conversation began their lives with a word(s) exchanged in conversation or that captured her attention in something she was listening to or viewing. She regards them as articulations of the said and unsaid, with the poetic voice in them not always hers but rather an expression or interpretation of the voice(s) of others.

In this collection, explore a variety of poems depicting a time of loneliness, growth, and self reflection. How change can often be unwanted, and the feelings that transpire with overcoming it.

These verses twist trauma and grief into self-loving peace, a therapy cushion of words and doodle artwork. Come feel the dark so we can see the light again.

The poems in this collection are a testament to Csaba's resilience, humor, and a deep sense of empathy. The author's reflections on life's joys and challenges are both personal and universal, touching on themes such as love, loss, hope, and the beauty of the natural world. The poems are written in a variety of styles, from free verse to haiku, and are infused with Csaba's unique perspective on the world.

Shards are the chipped-off pieces and eroded grains of myself that I collected from my mid-20s, when I was almost homeless again (yes, again), through my 30s, when I fought through that poverty, depression, and grief to find myself as a survivor. A poet doesn't just love you for a moment. She lets you puncture her skin with the way you feel, lets it heal, and then rubs it now and then to feel you again. This debut collection of poetry by a Cleveland, Ohio artist tells stories of traumas, breaking cycles, sexy romances, and the bond between the poet and listener.

In the footsteps of Charles Bukowski comes Hosho McCreesh's magnum opus of drunk poetry. Mammoth in size and scope, DrunkSkull books is pleased to release the audiobook version of A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, a drunken, epic collection about death and love that is unlike any of McCreesh's previous work.

The story of Belvie Rooks and Dedan Gills, their journey and their transformation, is “as old as eternity and as new as now.” As individuals, Dedan and Belvie were already activists, mentors, and voices for justice, but in their union, they became an even greater force for compassion and love.