Grief Poetry

The words you are about to hear have been ongoing for many, many years. They are not written to make you feel bad for me; they are written more as a lesson to myself. The words were never prethought but always came from some place within me forcibly picking up a pen and putting their utterances down at once. It was as if it was a command from the very depths of me, a strength in me that has always been there. Someone once said it was a goddess in me, the strong goddess who drives us on till we see the truth.

The poems in About Loss are written in free verse. They are simple and direct, yet emotional and beautiful. Love is part of loss, and this book has many love poems as well as poems of heartache.

This is a small book for the small hours when we sit alone in the dark or feel as though our grief isolates us. In the months following her husband’s sudden death, Sally Rosenthal explored her reactions to loss and came to realize that strength is a synergetic wisdom woven from the love passed on through the examples of relatives and beloved animals. In poems and prose, she shares what she has learned about survival and resilience. Come sit with Sally at her kitchen table and share the journey.

‘He seeks to contain multitudes’, commented one reviewer of John Stammers’ poetry, and in this long-awaited fourth collection Stammers’ restlessly eclectic range is very much in evidence. Here are poems of technical surprise alongside those of candid tenderness; poems that set love and love-making within a wider emotional and intellectual context. Here are epistemological meditations that nonetheless preserve the ‘essential gaudiness’ of poetry; and elegies for artist friends that consider the ephemeral nature of fame and charisma.

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

Dean Browne arrives at the After Party with the maturity and style of an altogether more seasoned poet. In a debut collection of standout and stand-alone poems, each tests the boundaries of its unique universe. Browne is a mesmeric teller of strange tales, imaginings that can seem origamically contained within the compressed dimensions of a poem. A leg sets off on a long train journey; a Parisian alley cat is launched into space; earthbound lovers attempt to connect while their inner lives prove unbridgeable.

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.

There is a quality to the darkest of dreams, not unlike that of a frightening and disturbing poem. Each bleeds fear, breathes mystery, and allows us to see nightmares with a secret eye. Michael’s newest collection of poetry, When the Night Owl Screams, offers up to 105 chilling poems that worm their way through the fever dreams staining your subconscious. Remember...you were warned.

Write Out Your Drops is an eclectic poetry collection speaking on an array of themes as it pertains to being true to oneself. The author brings listeners on an expressive journey through lyrical verses and graceful symbolism that makes one's individual experience seem more understood through the collective. The collection speaks on fighting despite the rain, embracing your tears through the struggles you face, and remaining in tune to the melody of your heart and the blood to which you are rooted.

Many times, we are bombarded by situations that make it difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel…we become impeded by our struggles and confined to futile reactions. And so…these poems come from an authentic place…a space where one is able to make sense of those things that make no sense. These poems are moments of contemplation in a world of troubles and trauma…These poems are a process of embracing a change to avoid remaining the same.

Loved, sickened loneliness feels makes a boy feel empty vulnerable, and 50 Poems was written in the lonely lakes of despair. My name is Daniel Contreras, and I suffered through loneliness and depression. Growing up, I would hide my poems, but now, it's my expression.

From My Lips to Your Ears is a collection of raw poetry created by Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue. This empowering collection details the jouirney one goes through regarding grief, love, inspiration, and sadness and represents an honest depiction of life through this poet's eyes.

Fragments of a Dying Dream is a profound journey through the emotional and spiritual landscape of trauma, healing and self-discovery. This collection of evocative prose poems captures the rawness of grief and the beauty of transformation. The author explores themes of pain, resilience, and inner strength, weaving together memories of personal loss and triumph with deep reflections on the soul’s journey. Each fragment is a window into the complexity of the human experience, where moments of sorrow intersect with glimmers of hope and healing.

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.

This is a literary composition composed for those who feel like nobody's listening. For my comrades, my mom and my dad, and my two sisters who showed me what it means to be different. For the drug addicts that fiend but still dream of better conditions, huddled with puddles on pillows with Brillos and pipes, not bathed or slept in days, high as a kite. For the single parents that struggle working doubles, taxing their muscles so their children can comfortably cuddle and sleep at night.

Following on his exquisite Stones, Young's new collection shapes stories of familial and familiar love, inspired in part by other lives. A central sequence, “The Two-Headed Nightngale,” is spoken by Millie-Christine McCoy, the famous conjoined African American “Carolina Twins.” Born into slavery and ill treatment as a “freak” sensation in 1851 and later free women, their alto and soprano voices harmonized, and Young's poem explores their evolving selfhood and self-understanding: “As one we sang, /we spake— / She was the body / I the soul / Without one / Perishes the whole.”

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.

This is a poetry collection from 2020. This is dark poetry that reflects the terrible year 2020 has been. There are about 72 poems and some journal entries.

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.

Glory, is the debut poetry release from poet, Fonzie Graziano. Developed over a span of several years, the poems in this chapbook contain themes and images that have haunted the author for much of his life until this point. Glory is a journey in the maze of an ill afflicted psyche which touches on topics close to the daily struggles of the author’s upbringing; love, depression, death, infidelity, mental illness, heartbreak, and moving forward.