Tag Archives: Poets

National Poetry Month: How Poets Pen The Grief Experience

Across America, powerful imagery and musical cadence ring out in coffee shops and onto the page during National Poetry Month. Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, the month-long recognition celebrates the poets’ integral role in our culture and society. We are reminded that poetry matters. Evermore’s very own Jena Kirkpatrick (editor…

Distinguished Author & Poet Naomi Shihab Nye Shares Her Poem On Grief, “Old Friend”

Dear Friends unknown,  We are joined together by so many things in grief.  Maybe there’s a luminous cord connecting us through sleepless hours and hardest times.  The poet Jack Ridl told me years ago, after my father died, “Grief is an ambush. When you’re least expecting it, it rises up again…” Poetry is a close…

Renowned Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Honors the Nuances of Grief In Her Poem, “I Want to Listen to Your Absence”

Before my son Finn died, I already had a daily writing practice in place. The day he died was the first night I hadn’t written a poem in over thirteen years. And then I didn’t write at all for the first seven weeks after his death. I suppose on the surface then it would look…

National Poetry Slam Champion Regie Gibson Pens a Letter of Grief to His Father, “Letter to My Father”

Losing anyone in your life affects EVERYTHING in your life.  Your perspectives shift. You question your own mortality.  Losing someone close to you makes you feel like a raw nerve in a world of razor-wire. Everything hurts.   Losing my dad just before becoming a father, seemed extra-ordinarily cruel and ironic. But, contemplating that cruel…

Oklahoma Poet Laureate Nathan Brown Says Less Is More When Talking About Grief In His Poem “Nevertheless, It Moves”

I lost a best friend, fellow vagabond, and gifted poet to a long battle with cancer. We traveled and performed together for years. We joked over homemade-hotel-room drinks about how the $31 we raked in from the donations for the night’s house concert, or whatever it was we could drum up, weren’t even enough to…

Notable Poet Brady Peterson Speaks About the Acceptance of Grief In His Poem, “He Checks His Luggage”

First, I have lived long enough to have outlived most of the people who were important to me when I was young. My parents died years ago. My younger brother died three years ago. All but one of my aunts and uncles have died. Cousins have died. Many close friends have died. At this point,…

Acclaimed Troubadour and Poet Beth Wood Writes About the Vulnerability of Grief In Her Poem, “LESS HEAVY THINGS”

My own loss and the deep grief that accompanies it brought about profound change in the way I experience creativity. Deep loss breaks you down in a way that also cracks you open. There is loss of control and surrender. Tears and sorrow pour out, but light also pours in. I learned to listen to…