A beautiful, compact, gift edition of some of the world’s greatest poems about loss and death, to ease the heart of the bereaved Who has not suffered grief? In Mourning Songs, the brilliant poet and editor Grace Schulman has gathered together the most moving poems about sorrow by the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Neruda, Catullus, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, W. S. Merwin, Lorca, Denise Levertov, Keats, Hart Crane, Michael Palmer, Robert Frost, Hopkins, Hardy, Bei Dao, and Czeslaw Milosz—to name only some of the masters in this slim volume. “The poems in this collection,” as Schulman notes in her introduction, “sing of grief as they praise life.” She notes: “As any bereaved survivor knows, there is no consolation. ‘Time doesn’t heal grief; it emphasizes it,’ wrote Marianne Moore. The loss of a loved one never leaves us. We don’t want it to. In grief, one remembers the beloved. But running beside it, parallel to it, is the joy of existence, the love that causes pain of loss, the loss that enlarges us with the wonder of existence.”

Songs of Joy in the Valley of Tears is about grief related to physical death and about the longing we have for a meaningful connection within safe, loving relationships. It's about our struggle to find that connection and the faith and energy it takes to remain there. Written over a time span of 37years, these 84 poems and related Scriptures describe 12 aspects of grieving. Through the beauty of poetry and the inspiration of Scripture, readers will?Connect in healing ways with their losses?Name and process grief in their unique way?Overcome obstacles that block their path?Discover an oasis of hope, peace, and joy in the midst of their tear-filled valleyA counselor, blogger, and author, Jane Ault writes books, poems, and songs of encouragement for people who desire to grow toward emotional and spiritual maturity-become more like Jesus. Her book, Emotional Freedom: The Choices We Must Make, is available at Amazon and WestBow Press. Her book, Heart Connections: Finding Joy through Openness with God, is available on her website. (https://www.choosinggrace.org/)

The Sand Dancers, Schulman's eighth collection and her finest to date, radiates wisdom and vision. Exultant even in despair, these are poems that stir us to be strong.

Love and grief and the two most private, and at the same time the most universal of all human emotions. It is for love that we remember the dead: love of their spirits, love of their vibrancy, love of the good deeds which they performed and which live on after them. The poems in this collection were all written by grieving hearts who have now themselves passed over into that great mystery. We can not truly know what death is, yet we know it will come to all of us. In ancient times when a friend told the philosopher Socrates that his judges had sentenced him to death he responded, "And has not Nature passed the same sentence on them?" Inasmuch as there can ever be any comfort for those left behind, part of it lies in knowing that death is a reflection of life. When it comes we cry, then we take our first faltering steps towards understanding. In time we become accustomed to this manifold enigma which nature has given us, and then ultimately we look towards the future with hope. If this little book of poems may be of some help to those in sorrow by reminding them they are not alone, then it will have done its work. Compiled and edited by Sarah A. Chrisman, author of the Tales of Chetzemoka series, This Victorian Life, and others.

Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the frst time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades.

The New York Times-bestselling collection of poems from celebrated poet Mary Oliver In A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life’s work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her treasured dog Percy, Oliver is open to the teachings contained in the smallest of moments and explores with startling clarity, humor, and kindness the mysteries of our daily experience.