Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing

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Overview

Poetry serves a unique role in our lives, distilling human experience and emotion down to truths as potent as they are brief. There are two times most people turn to it: for love and loss. Although collections of love poetry abound, there are very few anthologies for the grieving. In The Art of Losing, editor Kevin Young Kevin Young has introduced and selected 150 devastatingly beautiful poems that embrace the pain and heartbreak of mourning. Divided into five sections (Reckoning, Remembrance, Rituals, Recovery, and Redemption), with poems by some of our most beloved poets as well as the best of the current generation of poets, The Art of Losing is the ideal a gift for a loved one in a time of need and for use by ministers, rabbis, and palliative care workers who tend to those who are experiencing loss.

Among the poets included: Elizabeth Alexander, W.H. Auden, Amy Clampitt, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, Louise Gluck, Ted Hughes, Galway Kinnell, Kenneth Koch, Philip Larkin, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, Marianne Moore, Sharon Olds Mary Oliver, Robert Pinsky, Adrienne Rich, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Derek Walcott, and James Wright.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Young (Dear Darkness) is not only a prolific and acclaimed poet, but also the editor of several anthologies of poems, by African-American poets, inspired by the blues and jazz, and from the body of work by John Berryman. This latest anthology is his most topical, and, perhaps, his most useful, gathering poems about suffering and overcoming loss. Organized around subjects such as “Regret,” “Remembrance,” and “Ritual,” this book includes poets both canonical and contemporary, with perhaps a refreshingly larger helping of the latter: poets like Marianne More, Philip Larkin, and Elizabeth Bishop join newer names like D.A. Powell, Matthew Dickman, and Meghan O'Rourke; there are also plenty of reigning masters, like Louise Glück. “Death is nature's way/ of telling you to be quiet,” writes Franz Wright, somewhat harshly. With calmer acceptance, Theodore Roethke reminds us of the need to “wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.” While these poems won't offer easy answers to grief, they will keep the kind of company that only poetry can, because only poetry can convincingly say, as Ruth Stone does in the last poem of this book, “All things come to an end./ No, they go on forever.” (Mar.)

Library Journal

In this beautiful and practical book, experienced anthologist and poet Young (Jelly Roll: A Blues and Dear Darkness) has gathered poems of grief and praise. He includes selections from almost every well-known contemporary poet, including Kim Addonizio, John Ashbery, Mary Jo Bang, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins, and Mark Doty—and that's just a few from the beginning of the alphabet. Despite the subject, almost all the poems celebrate life as well; as David Young reminds us, "It will all go on. Rime, frost, mist;/ at the cracked mirror the janitor/ will comb his hair and hum." But whether the poems are memorializing stillbirths or newborns, grandparents or parents, siblings or friends, loss is always paramount. A useful subject index with clear headings, such as "For a Funeral Service," "Mothers," "Fathers," "Spouses and Lovers," and "Siblings," helps in the selection of memorial poems. VERDICT This book will provide solace for the bereaved. Both clergy and family members will use it to create meaningful memorial services, and all poetry lovers will find much to celebrate and ponder here.—Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., IL

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781608190331
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication date: 3/16/2010
Pages: 311
Sales rank: 199,525
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Kevin Young is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Dear Darkness, named one of the Best Books of 2008 by National Public Radio's All Things Considered and winner of a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award in poetry. His book Jelly Roll: A Blues was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. He is the editor of four other volumes, including Blues Poems, Jazz Poems, and the Library of America's John Berryman: Selected Poems. The curator of literary collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library and Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, Young lives in Boston and Atlanta.

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Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing

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