Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss Books

Happiness is often seen as elusive or unattainable. Much of our suffering comes from distancing ourselves from the world around us, from living only in the past or future and from failing to see and accept reality as it plays out in the present moment...

Featuring poetry and prose by established and emerging writers, Capsule Stories Winter 2020 Edition explores the theme Bare Bones. Read wintry writings that tell of loss and heartbreak in the coldest season of your life. These stories and poems are open...

"As I read and meditated on the poems in Beyond the Woes of Me, it seemed as if Dr. Dawn was allowed to pull back the curtains of our very own life's journey and was given the privilege to have a glance at both our highs and lows. She has captured the...

Live Free or Croak is a collection of poetry by poet/songwriter Larry Rogers.  Rogers, a Vietnam vet. and longtime resident of west central Arkansas, draws on his sharp wit, playful love of words, and  sensitive powers of observation to produce...

Jack Powers is attuned to twists of life and language—insults refitted as endearments, families defined by their troubles, great care taken with modes of recklessness . . . . Near the start of his debut collection, he’s praising the massive...

Rainforest in Russet is an in depth melding with nature and a look into the depths of heartache and coping with it. Sharp writes in fluid poetic wanderings through the innermost feelings of love, loss, heartbreak and coming to terms with what is and at...

Twisted Velvet Chains is a collection of poems which follows the experiences of a young woman growing up with a bipolar, drug addicted, Gothic musician mother. Each poem represents specific moments of their life that embrace vivid rich imagery, and...

Shirley Bell has changed from a young mother into a grandmother over the course of this collection. She had two stillbirths which profoundly affect her early writing. Her father's death when she was 13, her mother's recent decline into dementia and death...

Tolu' A. Akinyemi is a philosopher-poet and a deep thinker, and his journey into the realm of the spiritual would leave readers in awe.A god in a human body is Tolu' A. Akinyemi's ninth poetry collection. This collection is a meditation on the fleeting...

Shareen K Murayama's debut collection, Housebreak is a book of wild beauty and probing enquiry. Murayama asks how we live within perennial emergency, where belonging and self-protection converge, how we explain loss to children, what the wind has in...

 Each poem in My He-Man is a heartwarming tribute to a husband, son, father, and a friend, but mostly to a man who influenced and inspired every life he touched in a unique and inimitable way.- Divyata Rajaram, Author2019 Emirates Airlines Festival...

The poems in the collection, "My People Redux," travel through time. We go back and forth between the present, "They Could Be Sisters," and the past, "Goose Eggs," not just the poet's past but that of her ancestors who came to the Midwest from Mexico in...

The title poem for the chapbook, Trauma Décor, which was finalist in the Midwestern Writing Center's Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest, carries the chapbook's often-present theme of a protagonist's apocalyptic foreboding set in motion, here, by an...

This beautiful collection illuminates the poet's journey from girlhood to widowhood. "Still, Papa, somehow you conveyed to me/quiet is where you go to get soul things out" she writes in "Tough Guy," a childhood memory poem. In "Catbird," the title poem...

KEEP THE SINGING is a collection of elegies. The poetry's images include the ocean, music, piano, singing, childhood landscape images and grieving, in the author's attempt to come to terms with her sister's death. Six of the poems placed in the Blue...

Where Things Are, the debut collection of poems by Joan Gibb Engel, oscillates between the present and the remembered-in the poet's own words, "the beloved dead keep company with the living." 'Things' include objects quotidian and eternal-an accumulation...

Louisa Muniz's debut collection is a testament to the power of healing and reclamation that follow personal family loss & longing. With her artistry of words and beautiful images she pulls us into magical, surreal & sometimes strange landscapes...

Me and Her Shadow invites its readers in, with The Sacrifice of Isaac, a short poem the author wrote for her daughter as a young child, in which she helps both of them learn how to let go. It's a universal experience for parents watching their...

These poems are an intimate portrait of a life set against the sweeping history of human exile and belonging, from ancient Persia to contemporary America, from the Indian coastline to the rivers and forests of Washington DC.Poems in A Story of the World...

କବିତା ସାମଗ୍ରିକ ଚେତନାକୁ ପ୍ରଭାବିତ କରୁଥିବା ଅପ୍ରତିହତ ସାଂସ୍କୃତିକ ଧାରା- ଏହା ସମସାମୟିକ ଚେତନାରେ ଯେପରି ଜର୍ଜରିତ, ଐତିହାସିକ ଚେତନାରେ ସେହିପରି ପୁଷ୍ଟ । ଏଇ ""ଐତିହାସିକ' କିନ୍ତୁ ଇତିହାସ ଅର୍ଥରେ ନୁହେଁ । ପ୍ରତ୍ୟେକ କବିର ସ୍ୱତନ୍ତ୍ର ଐତିହ୍ୟ ରହିଛି । ଏହା ଫ୍ରଏଡ୍‌ଙ୍କ ଅବଚେତନ ହୋଇପାରେ,...

Author Oliver Bestul wrote this 120-poem collection during the many rambling walks of his first year at college. He uses an original poetic structure, the "bestul," to explore the sad and unsettling. ...

Children of Someone Else's Longing, investigates, through traditional and modern forms of poetry, landscapes of our human experience. Poems addressing interpersonal relationships and transitions over time and place are interspersed with questions...

Rilke's French poetry appears here for the first time in readable, musical versions. Largely unknown and rarely collected, these poems were written during the euphoria Rilke felt after having completed his greatest German works, the Duino Elegies and the...

Do they have telephones up in heaven ? is an anthology of poems penned during my first year in Paediatric residency to commemorate the many stories and lessons learnt from the children and families I was fortunate to work with through a myriad of...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as...

This book is a story of losing yourself and finding your true worth in the unconditional love you deserve.

If I knew it was the last time,I would have held you longer. I would have never let go. From debut poet Isabella Fulbright comes a collection of poetry that explores the struggle and the beauty that emerge on the other side of rediscovering...

Jonathan Travelstead's debut collection of poetry, HOW WE BURY OUR DEAD, follows a speaker who is coping with the death of his mother. He places himself in life-threatening and self-alienating situations in an effort to shield himself from grief. This...

Vulnerable, beautiful and ultimately life-affirming, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's work reaches new heights in her revelatory seventh collection of poetry. Continuing in her tradition of engaging autobiographical work, How to Love the Empty Air...

Derrick C. Brown, author of UH-OH (..".a rekindling of faith in the weird, hilarious, shocking, beautiful power of words." Joel Lovell, The New York Times) and Born in The Year of the Butterfly Knife, elevates his newest collection of writing...

Gutpunched by Love or at Least, Something is the debut collection of poems from the writer, Joe Currie. Writing in his own uniquely stark style, Currie explores the moments in life that make us feel as if we've been punched in the stomach, from the light...

In exquisitely crafted poems, Len Krisak's Say What You Will muses on a wide range of topics, in present-day and historic settings and relevance: ancient Tiberius, modern-day Halloween, cinema icons, and famous artwork, to name a few. Also...

How would you feel if today was your last day on Earth? Lotus is the part of yourself you're afraid and ashamed by, all the bad thoughts you shove inside the back closet in an empty room in the darkest corner of your brain. This 18-poem literary/visual...

"If the world can still shine after all it's been through, then Darling, so can you."Featuring 98 poems and little short stories, Glowstick guides the reader on a roller-coaster journey through the gradual decline of mental health before striving for...

"Dr. Slaughter fumbled with the dozen or more keys he had attached to his gilded key ring, forever choosing the wrong one in a futile first try at opening the jeweled box...his eyes glistened as he gazed down into the secret contained within." These...

This publication of poems is the heartbreak and pain that comes from the inner depths of the soul of any parent who has lost a child, particularly to suicide or, in this case, military suicide. The painful truth is that twenty-two veterans a day commit...

i became witnessto alchemy;a completely new figure emergedshimmeringand dancing in sunbeamsHurt by the Sun is a collection of poetry and prose that takes the reader through the transformative process from heartbreak and anger to healing and rebirth...

Rainer Maria Rilke is perhaps the most import German poet. His powerful and lyrical poetry has captured generations of readers. Both mystical and compelling his influence cannot be overstated.Collected here are more than 40 poems, full of beauty and...

The wandering of the mind. What sought to be imagination became a reality? Only to be found again to be a fantasy. A broken fantasy. Where will we be if we let these emotions overtake us? Maybe back here: back where the book we wrote our stories, our...

Conflict. Family. Alcohol. Annoying neighbours.Raving at the Big Bad explores the moody and manic spectrum of human experience. From childhood toys and chocolaty bribes to five-day alcohol binges. Pondering philosophy and God to op shopping and petty...

In Threads of Palestine Anthology, presented by House of Amal, the voices of poets across the world unite in a collection compiled after October 7th, 2023, that captures the grief, resilience, and hope of a better world. It is not only a literary tribute...

The Ferry Keeper is the winner of the 2024 Grayson Books Chapbook Contest. Judith H. Montgomery cared for her mother and father in their declining years, as well as for her husband in his cancer journey. The Ferry Keeper chronicles her care for her...