Things to Say to a Dead Man: Poems at the End of a Marriage and After

Internationally renowned author Jane Yolen has composed a sequence of tough, angry, and moving love poems that express grief and gratitude for her late husband David, as witness to his treatment for and passing from cancer, and the ongoing loss that is felt years after his death.

In one poem, Yolen—a prize-winning poet, speaks of his "shallow bird breath/beating beneath the cage of his chest bones." In another: "Do not help me to forget./Help me to remember." And in a third:

You have gone bef...