Download or read book Family Reunion written by Grace C. Ocasio and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. African & African American Studies. Family reunions are special occasions, a time of connections, reflections, of meeting new members, remembering those no longer with us, more than a little gossip (a good reason not to miss one if you don't want to be the one talked about!) and (mostly) good-natured kidding, occasional recriminations and grievances aired or confined to knowing side glances, and perhaps most importantly, the chance to pass on and keep alive the history and lore of the family from one generation to the next. Grace C. Ocasio's FAMILY REUNION is all of these things, and in reading this book we are privileged guests at just such an event, invited to hear the stories of her relatives across multiple generations. Because this is an account of an African-American family, it is necessarily in part a chronicle of racism and injustice and thus a contribution to the poetry of documentary witness. There are moments of tragedy (a child permanently brain damaged by being dropped by a nurse at birth) and indignity (a woman denied a PhD by Harvard because of her race), but also triumphs (one man becomes a celebrated physician, and many in the family graduate from college and go on to successful professional careers--including the author). These poems speak candidly of the experience of being Black in America. But that is not all that they do. What they reveal most of all is how this one family's story manages to be both uniquely their own and simultaneously universal, because we can all recognize ourselves and our own messy histories in these pages, whatever our race or origin. We've all encountered that uncle, that grandmother in our own families; we've heard the lectures (or given them ourselves) on hair and clothing, behavior and expectations, the suitability of suitors, all the friction at generational boundaries. Now, more than ever, we need to be reminded that we are all one family--however dysfunctional. To say that Ocasio does this with grace may be a pun, but it is also the truth. The book ends with a brief prose account of a family reunion that is hilariously chaotic, leaving the author with "hysteria welling in my throat." Well, that's family for you! But what a treat it is to get to know this one.
Download or read book Dearly written by Margaret Atwood and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author Margaret Atwood In Dearly, Margaret Atwood’s first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and intuitively lived. While many are familiar with Margaret Atwood’s fiction—including her groundbreaking and bestselling novels The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx and Crake, among others—she has, from the beginning of her career, been one of our most significant contemporary poets. And she is one of the very few writers equally accomplished in fiction and poetry. This collection is a stunning achievement that will be appreciated by fans of her novels and poetry readers alike.
Download or read book The Cure for Sorrow written by Jan Richardson and published by . This book was released on 2020-08 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Jan Richardson unexpectedly lost her husband and creative partner, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, she did what she had long known how to do: she wrote blessings. These were no sugar-coated blessings. They minimized none of the pain and bewilderment that came in the wake of a wrenching death. With these blessings, Jan entered, instead, into the depths of the shock, anger, and sorrow. From those depths, she has brought forth words that, with heartbreaking honesty, offer surprising comfort and stunning grace. Those who know loss will find kinship among these pages. In these blessings that move through the anguish of rending into the unexpected shelters of solace and hope, there shimmers a light that helps us see we do not walk alone. From her own path of grief, Jan offers a luminous, unforgettable gift that invites us to know the tenacity of hope and to recognize the presence of love that, as she writes, is "sorrow's most lasting cure."
Download or read book Beautiful and Terrible Things written by Christian M. M. Brady and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bible scholar Christian Brady, an expert on Old Testament lament, was as prepared as a person could be for the death of a child—which is to say, not nearly well enough. When his eight-year-old son died suddenly from a fast-moving blood infection, Brady heard the typical platitudes about accepting God's will and knew that quiet acceptance was not the only godly way to grieve. With deep faith, knowledge of Scripture, and the wisdom that comes only from experience, Brady guides readers grieving losses and setbacks of all kinds in voicing their lament to God, reflecting on the nature of human existence, and persevering in hope. Brady finds that rather than an image of God managing every event and action in our lives, the biblical account describes the very real world in which we all live, a world full of hardship and calamity that often comes unbidden and unmerited. Yet, it also is a world into which God lovingly intrudes to bring comfort, peace, and grace.
Download or read book I Needed the Quiet written by Alice Hansche Mortensen and published by Beacon Hill Press. This book was released on 1978-05-01 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Grace Notes written by Rita Dove and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1991 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poems deal with fantasy, childhood, family life, school, friendship, dreams, mortality, and memories
Download or read book Obit written by Victoria Chang and published by Copper Canyon Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020 Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 NPR's Best Books of 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, Longlist Frank Sanchez Book Award After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living. "When you lose someone you love, the world doesn’t stop to let you mourn. Nor does it allow you to linger as you learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart. Indeed, this daily indifference to being left behind epitomizes the unique pain of grieving. Victoria Chang captures this visceral, heart-stopping ache in Obit, the book of poetry she wrote after the death of her mother. Although Chang initially balked at writing an obituary, she soon found herself writing eulogies for the small losses that preceded and followed her mother’s death, each one an ode to her mother’s life and influence. Chang also thoughtfully examines how she will be remembered by her own children in time."—Time Magazine
Download or read book Bite Every Sorrow written by Barbara Ras and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of energetic and inquisitive poetry invites the reader to explore beauty, heartbreak, loss, and outrage
Download or read book Ramshackle Ode written by Keith Leonard and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sparkling debut collection from a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet that makes an ecstatic argument for living Containing joy and suffering side by side, Ramshackle Ode offers elegies and odes as necessary partners to bring out the greatest power in each. By turns celebratory, meditative, tender, and rebellious, these poems reimagine the divisions and intersections of life and death, the human and the natural world, the brutal and the beautiful. Time and again, they choose hope. From an award-winning young poet in the tradition of Marie Howe, Walt Whitman, Gerald Stern, and contemporary American bard Maurice Manning, Ramshackle Ode presents a new voice singing toward transcendence, offering the sense that, though this world is fragile, human existence is a wonderfully stubborn miracle of chance.
Download or read book Circle of Grace written by Jan Richardson and published by . This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Within the struggle, joy, pain, and delight that attend our life, there is an invisible circle of grace that enfolds and encompasses us in every moment. Blessings help us to perceive this circle of grace, to find our place of belonging within it, and to receive the strength the circle holds for us." -from the Introduction Beginning in Advent and moving through the sacred seasons of the Christian year, Circle of Grace offers Jan's distinctive and poetic blessings that illuminate the treasures each season offers to us.
Download or read book Leaning Into Love written by Elaine Mansfield and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I'll find a way to be all right," Elaine promised Vic, her dying husband and best friend of 42 years. Leaving the hospital after he passed, she had no idea how. Her uplifting story of love, hope, determination, and triumph is a gift to the half million women who lose spouses each year.
Download or read book Funeral Poems written by Michael Ashby and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 137 FUNERAL POEMS to COMFORT YOU, already being used by UK & US Funeral Directors & Civil Funeral Celebrants; 80 inspirational famous poems by SHAKESPEARE, TENNYSON, WORDSWORTH, BURNS, KEATS, SHELLEY, BYRON, DICKINSON, BROWNING, ROSSETTI, BROOKE... and 57 MODERN funeral poems including: "I AM NOT GONE", "A LONG CUP OF TEA", "RAINBOWS ON THE MOON", "MY MUM", "GRANDPA'S LOST HIS GR", "THE GOLF COURSE IN THE SKY" & "I WANT TO BE BURIED WITH MY MOBILE PHONE"... by Michael Ashby, one of the world's leading, modern funeral poets, whose poems have already touched the lives of millions in over 172 countries through Michael's website & facebook pages & moving, global Comments from these are included.
Download or read book A Grace Paley Reader written by Grace Paley and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An essential book for all Grace Paley fans Grace Paley is best known for her inimitable short stories, but she was also an enormously talented essayist and poet. A Grace Paley Reader collects the best of Paley's writing, showcasing her breadth of work and her extraordinary insight and empathy. With an introduction by George Saunders and an afterword by the writer's daughter, Nora Paley, A Grace Paley Reader is sure to become an instant classic."--
Download or read book Abacus of Loss written by Sholeh Wolpé and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2022-03-21 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Sholeh Wolpé's memoir in verse, the poet wields an abacus as an instrument of remembering. Bead by bead, she takes the reader on a journey of love and exile, loss and triumph"--
Download or read book Without End written by Adam Zagajewski and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-03-18 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I love to swim in the sea, which keeps talking to itself in the monotone of a vagabond who no longer recalls exactly how long he's been on the road. Swimming is like prayer: palms join and part, join and part, almost without end. --from "On Swimming" Without End draws from each of Adam Zagajewski's English-language collections, both in and out of print--Tremor, Canvas, and Mysticism for Beginners--and features new work that is among his most refreshing and rewarding. These poems, lucidly translated, share the vocation that allows us, in Zagajewski's words, "to experience astonishment and to stop still in that astonishment for a long moment or two."
Download or read book Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep written by Anonymous and published by Inspirational. This book was released on 1996 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beautiful and moving poem, by an unknown author, was left by a soldier killed in Ulster "to all my loved ones". This special edition, sensitively illustrated with delicate drawings by Paul Saunders, is intended as a lasting keepsake for those mourning a loved one.
Download or read book The Fat Black Woman s Poems written by Grace Nichols and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beauty is a fat black woman walking the fields pressing a breezed hibiscus to her cheek while the sun lights up her feet Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her 'fat black woman' is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors, to a white world that still turns its back. Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures and sadnesses of memory, of loving, of 'the power to be what I am, a woman, charting my own futures'.
