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A review by ulknehs
The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing by Kevin Young
3.0
A decent collection of poems about loss and grief. As others have noted, it starts out promisingly but doesn't quite follow through.
I also found the title a bit of an odd nod to Elizabeth's Bishop's One Art, which is not about grief (although it is about loss) and famously opens with 'the art of losing isn't hard to master'; as someone who lost their father over a decade ago, if there's an art to losing, it's not one I've mastered yet.
No collection can be comprehensive, but there were quite a few of my favourites missing. Given the subjective nature of a collection such as this, that's hardly surprising - nor an indictment. But, in the interests of taking any opportunity to share poetry - here are the two shortest of them:
'Separation'
W.S. Merwin
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
'Michiko Dead'
Jack Gilbert
He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm that is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.
I also found the title a bit of an odd nod to Elizabeth's Bishop's One Art, which is not about grief (although it is about loss) and famously opens with 'the art of losing isn't hard to master'; as someone who lost their father over a decade ago, if there's an art to losing, it's not one I've mastered yet.
No collection can be comprehensive, but there were quite a few of my favourites missing. Given the subjective nature of a collection such as this, that's hardly surprising - nor an indictment. But, in the interests of taking any opportunity to share poetry - here are the two shortest of them:
'Separation'
W.S. Merwin
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
'Michiko Dead'
Jack Gilbert
He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm that is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.