I Had a Brother Once is an elegiac and honest account of the devastation of suicide, the senselessness of grief, and the imperatives and difficulties of narrative when a loved one's life is on the page.
Tag: loss
‘Telling Stories is the Single Thing That Makes Us Human’ – A Conversation with Adam Mansbach
A conversation with Adam Mansbach about loss, grief, and the process of writing his new book, I Had a Brother Once, in the form of an epic poem.
Stuart Gunter – The Wind Telephone
Stuart Gunter's poem, The Wind Telephone, engages with one of the more poignant symbols of the thousands of deaths following the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
Tracy Ahrens – Thicket of Memories
'We all age. We all die. We all should keep trying to rise to the sunlight. Saplings will learn from this determined climb.'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Mother and Poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Mother and Poet' is a lamentation of a mother's grief over losing her only two sons in battle.
Amy-Sarah Marshall – Shelled
Amy-Sarah Marshall's poem 'Shelled' touches on feelings of loss and remembrance through a minimal and pared-down verse.
The Culture of Healing: Louise Glück on Art’s Restorative Power
Louise Glück's essay condemns current trends of pathological optimism, as well as the tendency towards 'the pornography of scars.'
The Landscape of Loss – Liz Tichenor’s ‘The Night Lake’
How to continue in the world after losing a child? Young mother and priest Liz Tichenor charts the journey of her own bereavement.
Embodying Grief – A Conversation with Liz Tichenor
Author and priest Liz Tichenor talks about her book The Night Lake, about dealing with loss and what the topography of grief looks like after seven years.
Todd Williams – Lost Socks
Todd Williams wrote this poem shortly after the death of his father, having gone through his clothes and belongings.