The Poetry of Grief

Grief isn’t a staircase you use to walk up from the basement. It’s a drunk squirrel driving a bumper car in your brain hitting every post in no discernable pattern. One minute you’re in denial your loved one is gone and the next you are putting away their clothes and making plans for a getaway. Then, out of nowhere, you get so angry that hot tears sting your red cheeks as you spit an avalanche of cuss words at the ceiling.

 

By Kellie Schorr

In some ways, the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of grief is the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief.

There, I said it. I’ve been wanting to say it for years. It’s hard to come out against something so well known and popular, but here I am tilting at the windmill. What’s next? A diatribe against “thoughts and prayers” —well…actually…

The problem with the Kubler-Ross model is how orderly and linear it seems. It can very easily make you believe that when you lose someone you will go through five stages in a nice orderly fashion and come out with acceptance at some point. No. Just, no.

Grief isn’t a staircase you use to walk up from the basement. It’s a drunk squirrel driving a bumper car in your brain hitting every post in no discernable pattern. One minute you’re in denial your loved one is gone and the next you are putting away their clothes and making plans for a getaway. Then, out of nowhere, you get so angry that hot tears sting your red cheeks as you spit an avalanche of cuss words at the ceiling.  Three minutes later, a friend calls, and you chat about movies. There’s no order to grief, no timeline, no map.

Who better to walk you through it than a poet? Well, in this case, many poets.

John Brehm’s lovely The Poetry of Grief, Gratitude, and Reverence is a collection of work by people who get it and know how to share it. Deep ventures into the chiaroscuro of loss, the book begins with blunt, illusion shattering “Disheartened” by Ada Limon and walks with you on a path from grief to gratitude, landing at a comfort and acknowledgement of humility and appreciation. From there, having been forged in the fire and shaped into a new form, you end up in reverence. That’s a path worth walking.

It’s the idea of reverence I found most intriguing. Reflecting on how rarely we pause and wonder, Brehm writes:

“I have come to believe that recovering a sense of reverence—a sense of the sacredness of all life, may be the only thing that can save us from the total systems collapse that now looms before us, if indeed it is not already too late.”

Rarely have I read something with which I agree so much.

The editor’s personal remarks make up a small portion of the book, but they have the quality of a dharma teaching. Pith, powerful and then off you go to figure it out for yourself. The poems are carefully arranged to capture snapshots of the many facets of loss, then through their kaleidoscopic placement reveal the path out of darkness into appreciation.

If you think poetry might have been fine for Robert Frost in his day, but it’s a pretty old- school way to recover, don’t despair.

Brehm takes advantage of modern technology to offer techy folks and auditory learners an olive branch. At the bottom of some selected poems is a QR code you can scan with your phone, and it will take you to a website with audio guided meditations and a reading of the poem.

To be honest, I thought that was as gimmicky as one could get. Until I tried it. Reading on a quiet evening I came across “Fern, Coal, Diamond” by Arthur Sze and I scanned the little code. There are three lengths of meditation you can choose. After some basic instruction on sitting and focusing on the breath, the poem is read. By the end of my ten-minute session, I had tears and awe. I had encountered poetry, and reverence, in a way that was new and powerful.

Poetry isn’t about understanding what it says and picking out the symbols and metaphors like a hidden object game. It’s about experience and appreciation. This QR interaction will take you there.

The book is beautiful to look at, and wonderful to encounter. Don’t be fooled by its pastoral exterior. The poems here are raw, real, wise, revealing, and will hit every pole in your bumper car brain without tapping the brakes. Grief is not the ride you wanted to take, but this work might just be what you need to find a path in the chaos.

 

Photo: Wisdom Publications

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

Did you like this post? You may also like:

Dharma Talk: Talking with John Brehm about His Latest Poetry Book {Podcast}

Grief Emerging (Because You Can’t Keep Your Head in the Sand)

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