Grief is such a hard thing to talk about. It’s an unavoidable and inevitable part of human life, but it hits each of us in different ways. It comes in many forms, from losing a pet to losing a spouse or a child, and it wounds and scars those left behind to continue living without the lost. However death finds us, though, the human experience of grief is universal enough that psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross even identified distinct stages nearly everyone seems to feel as they grieve.
The most recent loss I’ve been through was the death of my father several years ago, which made Book of Hours quite a cathartic yet ultimately healing experience to read. Kevin Young’s poems here were written over the course of several years as he dealt with the death of his own father.
Young’s father passed away due to an unfortunate and sudden accident. Unlike that quick and tearing grief the poet felt, my own grief built over the course of years as I saw my dad deteriorate from a sickness he imposed on himself. No matter the difference, the similarity of feeling present in these poems is powerful.
Denial — We want to tell ourselves it hasn’t happened. We hang up, thinking, That couldn’t have actually been THE phone call, could it? We drive off on a random errand, wrapping our brains around the mundane instead of the pit right under our feet. Young asks, “Can the sun be awful?” and later talks of “laundry like a prayer” as the day-to-day activities of life continue to play out despite anyone’s pain or sorrow. Yet sometimes there is comfort in those very same activities, allowing us to dam the grief, even if only temporarily.
Anger — I’m not an angry person, typically. At least I try not to be … often it just gets internalized and aimed toward myself instead of outward at others. Poems here like “Codicil” resonated with me, when those brief spurts or anger at inappropriate targets make us feel ashamed of our grief. That shame quickly becomes anger again, and a vicious and difficult cycle continues. Young’s introductory quotes illustrate the anger that can even be directed toward the divine as we question over and over why this had to happen.
Bargaining — Many of those pleas to the divine transform into bargains. “Though that I’d kill for,” the poet states when talking of his dad coming back for a visit. We tell ourselves we would do anything, whatever it takes, just to see that person again. Sometimes, as “Wintering” tells us, the griever finds himself wondering if he wouldn’t rather be dead, too, just to be with that precious someone he lost. There is no shame in those thoughts, if you’ve ever felt them. It’s merely another form the process of grief can take.
Depression — Sometimes everything happening just seems like too much, and it’s time to crawl into a hole and hide. The poet, in “Asylum”, describes how he asks “the leaves to tide over me,” and how he yearns for “winter’s strait-jacket” … words of someone whose sadness has become nearly unbearable.
Acceptance — The majority of the latter half of Book of Hours felt like the poet’s quest to find this, to find that part of himself that could move on and still be OK even without his dad. That’s been what the last several years have felt like for me, too. Young describes many other passages of life, from getting married to having children, even experiencing more loss and grief from unexpected directions. Through it all, though, the poet’s voice stays strong and passionate and clear, a picture of someone fighting to live … not just waiting to die.
There isn’t now nor will there ever be a perfect way to grieve. Each of us feels our pain and our sorrow in unique ways, just as each of our own souls is unique and precious. Poetry can remind us of that, can get to the core of a feeling with needle-fine accuracy. Poetry can also allow us to express our emotions in a heartfelt and lyrical manner that allows even something painful like grief to feel like a beautiful dance.
Pages, Pixels, Grapes and Grooves 