“Poems of Mourning,” Edited by Peter Washington

“Poems of Mourning” is a volume from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series, which, in turn, is part and parcel of Everyman’s Library, a reprint series that publishes new and beautiful editions of literary classics, mostly from from the western canon. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1906 by Joseph Dent, a master bookbinder turned publisher, the Everyman’s Library seeks to offer classics that “appeal to every kind of reader.” John Gross said of Everyman’s Library, “Other reprint publishers merely published reprints; Everyman’s Library was an institution, a benign presence, a crusade, and act of faith.”  

The Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series consists of elegantly bound poetry anthologies. Each volume, with its full-cloth sewn binding and silk ribbon marker, feels like a special invitation into a sacred world of words. There are more than 80 titles in print, including one dedicated to poems that deal with grief and loss, and death and dying. The volume is called “Poems of Mourning,” and it is edited by Peter Washington, who is the General Editor of Everyman’s Library and editor of a number of the anthologies.  

“Poems of Mourning” includes poems that touch on the various stages of the grieving process. There are poems that grapple with despair over loss, with anger over loss, and with acceptance. There are poems that approach the subject with humor, others that approach it with a tone of melancholy. What they have in common is their attempt to distill the overwhelming experience of mourning into lines that resonate, to wrestle grief into sentences and stanzas that might speak to the reality of loss.   

Everyman’s Library
Credit: juniperbooks.com

“Poems of Mourning” reaches back in time to include poems that were written as long ago as the 8th century BC: Washington includes in the volume an excerpt from Homer’s “The Odyssey,” wherein Odysseus mourns the death of his faithful dog Argos. He includes a poem written by Ben Johnson in the 17th century after his son died of Bubonic plague at age 7. The poem is called “On My First Son,” and it’s a heartbreaking one. It begins, 

Farewell, though child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.
Seven years tho’ wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on just the day.

“Poems of Mourning” includes a fair amount of works from the 19th and early 20th centuries as well, by poets such as Thomas Hardy and Christina Rossetti. If you’re looking to read the words of contemporary poets of recent decades, however, you should probably look elsewhere. If you want to journey back through time and read works on death and dying through the ages, this is a great collection.