Collection

Poems of Sorrow and Grieving

Classic and contemporary poems about ultimate losses.

Illustration by Natalia Vico.

Remembering A Parent

- Making a Fist
  Naomi Shihab Nye
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
- "oh antic God"
  Lucille Clifton
oh antic God
return to me
- The Night Where You No Longer Live
  Meghan O’Rourke
And did you still create me
And what was I like on the first day of my life

Love Lost

- Ae Fond Kiss
  Robert Burns
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then forever!
- And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair
  Lord Byron (George Gordon)
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
- Ebb
  Edna St. Vincent Millay
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
- Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
  Ben Jonson
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.

Death Of A Child

- An Arbor
  Linda Gregerson
The world’s a world of trouble, your mother must have told you
that. Poison leaks into the basements
- The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad
  Robert Herrick
Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses
- The Dying Child
  John Clare
He could not die when trees were green,
For he loved the time too well

Grieving The Death Of A Friend

- ELEGY WITH A CHIMNEYSWEEP FALLING INSIDE IT
  Larry Levis
Those twenty-six letters filling the blackboard
Compose the dark
- Facing It
  Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.

Regret & Depression

- A Daughter of Eve
  Christina Rossetti
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
- The Debt
  Paul Laurence Dunbar
This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
- Fragment 3: Come, come thou bleak December wind
  Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!