Tag Archives: Loss in Poetry

“A Dedication” by James Merrill

James Merrill explores the divine that is imminent in the stages of grief

James Merrill’s elegiac poem, “A Dedication” observes grief in its most intimate setting: the mind. Addressed to his friend, the Dutch poet Hans Lodeizen (who died while still a young man in 1950), the poem suggests its close relation to the poet’s … Continue reading

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“A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth captures grief over a lost loved one in eight short lines

How many lines does a poet need to write in order to record a loved one’s death? Of course, the story of a person’s death, as with their life, goes further than any number of words can express. British Romantic … Continue reading

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“Kyrie” by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Ellen Bryant Voigt's sonnet sequence on the post-WWI Influenza of 1918

Few may be familiar with the Influenza of 1918. Although it took half a million lives in the U.S. and 25 million worldwide, most of whom were young adults, the pandemic somehow eludes due emphasis in our history books. One … Continue reading

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“The Man with Night Sweats” by Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn memorializes his loved ones who died of AIDS

Thom Gunn’s The Man with Night Sweats (1992) memorializes a San Francisco poet’s tragic losses due to AIDS. An “Anglo-American poet” known for his brainy yet visceral formal verse, the late British expatriate often wrote in meter and rhyme about his … Continue reading

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”I shift my pillow closer to the full moon.”

- Saiba, Died on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 1858 at the age of fifty-one.
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