Instead of a Card: Poems of Bereavement

This pamphlet is gorgeous both inside and out and can be sent as a substitue for a greeting card, or as a lovely little poetry book in its own right. Cover designers are created by leading contemporary artists and poems hand-picked to speak to every kind of reader.

Pamphlets are supplied with an envelope for posting and a bookmark with space for you to write a special message. 

Poems of Bereavement

This second edition of Candlestick Press' much-loved anthology containing poems of bereavement selected for their beauty and for the sense of consolation that they offer. There are poems that question and mourn, alongside others that accept the inevitability of death and give thanks for a life well lived.

Poems old and new reflect on the experience of losing a much-loved parent, child, sibling or friend, as well as on the immense loss of life in the two World Wars. For those arranging a funeral or simply seeking the quiet company of words to help them through the long process of grieving, this varied and reflective selection is sure to offer comfort:

“I lie here in a riot of sunlight
Watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.”

from ‘Everything is Going to Be All Right’ by Derek Mahon

Poems by WH Auden, Laurence Binyon, Robert Burns, Gaius Valerius Catullus, Billy Collins, Wendy Cope, Emily Dickinson, Sasha Dugdale, Paul Durcan, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lorna Goodison, Thomas Gray, Matthew Hollis, Jackie Kay, Faith Lawrence, John McCrae, Derek Mahon, Sue Millard, Adrian Mitchell, Peter Porter, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Michael Rosen, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, Penelope Shuttle, Edna St Vincent Millay, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain and Anna Wigley.

Cover illustration by Lizzie Adcock.