Following my request for book recommendations on grief, E. lent me Donald Hall’s Without, a poetry collection exploring the dying and death of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon.
The collection takes the form of letters written to Jane and coalesces around Hall’s experience preparing for and responding to Jane’s death. The scenes described are – unsurprisingly for poetry – intimate, focused and breathtakingly poignant.
You might be a person who thinks a) I don’t read poetry or b) I don’t want to read about grief/dying. And if the case of b), fine. Don’t read this one. But if you’re interested in the theme, don’t let the form in this instance throw you off. The poems are entirely accessible to even the most resistant of poetry readers.
My only caveat with the collection is that you’ll want to take your time. I started off reading in a rush – as I would with a novel – but discovered that by giving myself a few days between each poem or a few poems they lingered and filled my mental space far more than ingesting the whole thing in one sitting. Not true, additional caveat: avoid reading the collection on public transit unless you’re okay with public displays of waaa.
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