How to Write a Grief Poem
I had a tech glitch!
A very early, half-finished version of this post went out to subscribers this morning - even though I triple-checked the post before scheduling! Thank you for bearing with my double-emailing and I hope you enjoy the post below. <3
Nobody Likes Being Alive as Much as You
did, which means a late November
Friday finds me discontented
in the kitchen, fingers cushioning
a sweet roll fragrant
from the reheat. The bread
holds a brace of cranberry,
a smudge of butter,
a spoon of gravy and
this is the meat
of it: you are not here
to warm my leftovers.
It's hard to swallow
the spoils of loss -
your hands turned
to ashes, no tongue left
to lick the plate clean.
I eat. I try
to remember
how to be thankful
I’m alive.
- by Annalise Parady
How to Write a Grief Poem
Prepare yourself to commune with the dead. Build an altar for souls to gather on. Invite your dog for comfort. Brew a cup of tea to catch your tears. Write in a room where the walls are ready to witness your lament.
Try entering your poem from the smallest possible place. Think about the soles of your feet on the kitchen tile while you wept over the can of cat food still in the fridge. Replay the second-to-last conversation you had with your lost one, pull a single line. Summon the image of their left thumb. Start small. Allow the rest to arrive when it chooses.
Invite the dead to talk to your poem, and then invite them to leave. This is your poem, after all. Pull up a seat for their flaws if you’d like. Reject the matte version of the person found in the obituary. Write in honest, revealing high-res.
Loosen your grip on the facts. When poetry and death start dancing, accuracy doesn’t need to be in the room. Maybe he died in December but the memory is humid hot on your neck when you think about it - write it in July. Give your dead lover purple hair. Let the factual waters of your poem be as muddy as memory. Your only concern is emotional truth.
If your grief is too big for a poem right now, let it be. Move your muscle and mind elsewhere. Dance with primal anger. Take your sorrows to the river. Sit numb at the top of a mountain. Trust the poem to return when you can reach for it.
Practices:
Build a small altar on your writing desk for anyone you’ve lost who you’d like to sit with you as you write. If you’re not a writer, build it anywhere in your home.
Read some good grief poems - I recommend the book “Obit” by Victoria Chang and the poems “Love Letter from the Afterlife” by Andrea Gibson and “Greensickness” by Laurel Chen.
Join
if you need a grief community - we’d love to have you.Prompts:
Write a poem where, like Victoria Chang, you write an obituary for something else that died when a person did - like the blue dress of theirs you never saw again, or a part of yourself that you feel like went missing.
After the late & wonderful Andrea Gibson, write a love letter to the afterlife - write a poem to your loved one, wherever they are now.
The next random memory to surface of the person you’re missing, no matter how mundane - write it down. When you’re ready, see if it wants to transform into a poem.
I’m thrilled to share that I was invited on to the
podcast. You can listen to the episode here - make sure to subscribe to the podcast to hear from some amazing poets. The Gather lit mag will be publishing a new poem of mine on Friday also, so keep an eye out for that.
This event is almost sold out, but the
are taking the stage in Chicago on August 9th at Overflow Coffee. Tickets can be purchased here. I’ll be there reading some work of my own and I would love to see you!The Poetry Lab is now accepting proposals to teach 4-week courses with them. You can submit your course syllabus to them here if you’d like to teach.
- hosts monthly virtual workshops with a different theme each month. On August 16th at 2 p.m. EST, you can join the “Double Talk” workshop, which will feature the concept of polyvocality. Sign up here for $25 - discount code available upon request.
This is my favorite and best version of this poem! I think you can be done tinkering with it, it's just right, just like Thanksgiving leftovers
Beautiful work!