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Apr 30, 2021 · Poetry can help put what you're feeling into words. These five poems explore the legacy someone can leave behind – Jackie Kay describes seeing her mother in the sunsets and hills of Scotland – and a life lived without regret, like in Amelia Burr's A Song of Living.
- Immortality by Clare Harner. This inspirational poem about the death of a loved one invites us to look for them all around us in the beauty of the world.
- There Is No Night Without A Dawning by Helen Steiner Rice. This short poem is a popular choice for funerals because it reminds us that despite the death of someone we cared about, the darkness of our grief will pass.
- Turn Again To Life by Mary Lee Hall. This beautiful poem was perhaps made most famous for having been read at Princess Diana’s funeral. It urges the listener – the griever – to not mourn for long, but to embrace life once more.
- Farewell by Anne Bronte. This is another well known poem about death that reminds us not to think of it as a final goodbye. Instead, it encourages us to cherish the fond memories we have of our loved one so as to keep them alive within us.
- Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep - Mary Elizabeth Frye. “Do not stand at my grave and weep,” Frye commands. “I am not there. I do not sleep.” This vibrant poem suggests that the departed one’s spirit has merely been set free (“I am the sunlight…the gentle autumn rain”) so there is little to be gained by crying at a graveside.
- Remember – Christina Rossetti. This charming poem actually has a trick up his sleeve. Despite the title, it’s actually all about reassuring the living that sometimes it’s okay to forget (“if you should forget me for a while / …do not grieve”).
- funeral – Rupi Kaur. Does a funeral need to be dark, sombre occasion? Rupi Kaur doesn't think so. In this poem she describes her ideal funeral, including flower garlands, ice cream and dancing in the street.
- Let Me Die a Youngman's Death - Roger McGough. Sometimes, it helps to simply laugh in the face of the inevitable. With tongue firmly in cheek, Scouse poet McGough fantasises about dying a grisly, Hollywood-style death as a very old man.
- Because I could not stop for Death. By Emily Dickinson. Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves
- Death Is Nothing At All. By Harry Scott-Holland. Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened.
- Wild Geese. By Mary Oliver.
- For Katrina’s sun dial. By Henry Van Dyke. Time is too slow for those who wait, Too swift for those who fear, Too long for those who grieve, Too short for those who rejoice,
- “Lady Lazarus,” Sylvia Plath. The sounds alone are enough to keep me alive, the language pulling away from meaning like flesh from bone (“Soon, soon the flesh/ The grave cave ate will be/ At home on me // And I a smiling woman.”)
- “The Big Loser,” Max Ritvo. Ritvo is now famous not only for his poetry but for his sweetness in the face of death. This poem is one of many bittersweet lenses on the life he was getting ready to leave.
- “If I should die,” Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson wrote about death a lot, and a number of her poems would fit in this category. I chose this one for its cheer, its cuteness as it imagines how nice life will be for everyone else after the speaker’s death—plus, you don’t get too many death poems that end in exclamation marks.
- “The Mower,” Philip Larkin. Here, Larkin takes a small, everyday death and blows it up to the size of the human condition. The last couplet makes me want to cry—but it also makes me want to go out into the world and make friends with it.
Sep 18, 2020 · In a celebrated early poem, And Death Shall Have No Dominion , Thomas laments the fact that death is an inevitability, but reminds us defiantly that life goes on – thus death doesn’t have total dominion over us. In the above passage, he writes that love is eternal, so even after lovers die, their love for each other will live on in some form.
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The poem encourages readers to reflect upon the delicate balance between love, life, and death. Through the exploration of poems that intertwine love and death, we gain a deeper understanding of the profound impact these themes have on the human experience.
