10 Moving Poems About Grief

Although normal and a natural human experience, grief can be intensely emotional in the weeks, months, and years after a major loss. Because of the depth and range of emotions involved in the grieving process, grief has become associated with poetry. 

Writing and reading poems about grief may help people find ways to describe feelings that initially seem overwhelming and indescribable. Poetry may also help people better understand the grieving process and continue feeling attached to the person, item, role, or situation they lost. Below, read ten poems about grief with short snippets of each.

1. "The Five Stages of Grief" by Linda Pastan (1978)

The topic of grief can be found in Shakespeare and contemporary poems alike. However, one of the poems most widely cited by grief researchers in "The Five Stages of Grief" is one in which Linda Pastan tells a story using the five stages of grief theory as a backbone. In it, the reader watches the speaker of the poem move through each stage after losing a loved one, perhaps a romantic partner.

Denial was first.

I sat down at breakfast

carefully setting the table

for two. I passed you the toast—

you sat there. I passed 

you the paper—you hid

behind it.

2. "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1932)

3."Funeral Blues" by W. H. Auden (1936)

Writer W. H. Auden wrote "Funeral Blues" to describe the feelings of grief experienced while attending the funeral of a special loved one. In addition to being published in multiple books, this poem was also part of a play and performed as a cabaret song. Now, the poem is commonly read at funerals to honor the deceased.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

4. "Remember" by Christina Rossetti (1849)

In "Remember," Christina Rossetti takes a different approach to grief by writing from the point of view of a dead person.

Remember me when I am gone away,

         Gone far away into the silent land;

         When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 

Although the speaker of the poem initially hints at the sadness facing the reader of the poem, by the end of the poem, they give the reader permission to move on. They remind people who are grieving that they do not need to grieve forever, and that their loved ones would want them to continue living happy lives.

Better by far, you should forget and smile

         Than that you should remember and be sad.

5. "Sonnet" by William Barnes (1800s)

In this sonnet, poet William Barnes grapples with mixed emotions that reflect both his sadness at losing his romantic partner and his hope stemming from his spiritual beliefs. Although his partner is no longer physically present with him, he experiences her with every wind and has faith that she is "in a world of bliss." He also believes she is "fairer" or more beautiful than she was even when she was on earth. Barnes knows he won't see his beloved again in this life, but the poem ends with him looking forward to reuniting with her again one day in the afterlife.

In every moaning wind, I hear thee say

Sweet words of consolation, while thy sighs

Seem borne along on every blast that flies;

I live, I talk with thee where'er I stray:

And yet thou never more shalt come to me

On earth, for thou art in a world of bliss,

And fairer still—if fairer thou canst be—

Than when thou bloomed'st for a while in this.

6. "Sorrow" by D. H. Lawrence (early 1900s)

D.H. Lawrence wrote the poem "Sorrow" about the grief he experienced after his mother's death. In it, he describes how the thin streams of smoke from the cigarettes he smokes after his mother's death remind him of his mother's gray hair. This poem is short and in the public domain so that individuals can read it in its entirety:  

Why does the thin grey strand
Floating up from the forgotten
Cigarette between my fingers,
Why does it trouble me?

Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning
Of her soft-foot malady,

I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat, and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.

7. "Gabriel" by Edward Hirsch (2014)

Edward Hirsch wrote "Gabriel," a 78-page, book-length poem, as an elegy for his son. The New Yorker published an extensive article on Hirsch, Gabriel, and the book, calling it "a masterpiece of sorrow." In this excerpted passage, Hirsch describes grief as physically taxing and unrelenting.

I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

8. "Making a Fist" by Naomi Shihab Nye (1988)

In "Making a Fist," Naomi Shihab Nye indirectly writes about her mother's death by addressing her own continued life. By comparing her adult self to her childhood self and noting that she is "still lying in the backseat behind all my questions," she illustrates that death and grief can be as confusing and difficult to understand in adulthood as they were in childhood.

“How do you know if you are going to die?”

I begged my mother.

We had been traveling for days.

With strange confidence, she answered,

“When you can no longer make a fist.”

Years later, I smile to think of that journey,

the borders we must cross separately,

stamped with our unanswerable woes.

I, who did not die, who am still living,

still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,

clenching and opening one small hand. 

9. "The Leaf and the Tree" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (year unknown)

Although "The Leaf and the Tree" isn't specifically about a person grappling with loss, it may bring peace to many experiencing grief. This poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay first describes how individuals are part of a greater interconnected whole using a metaphor of a leaf and a tree. Then, she goes on to make clear that eventually, with time, everything — both the leaf and the tree — will end. Some people may interpret this poem as describing nature's cycles that they lack control over and must accept despite, perhaps, wanting to resist.

Here, I think, is the heart’s grief:

The tree, no mightier than the leaf,

Makes firm its root and spreads its crown

And stands, but in the end, comes down.

10. "Buried at Springs" by James Schuyler (1993)

James Schuyler opens the poem "Buried at Springs" by describing his fight with a hornet he's trying to remove from the window.

There is a hornet in the room   

and one of us will have to go   

out the window into the late   

August midafternoon sun. I

won. There is a certain challenge   

in being humane to hornets   

but not much. 

After looking out the window, Schuyler moves from this mundane scene to share about his loss. All the beauty he sees that his loved one once saw is "not the same." This poem speaks to the often difficult-to-describe feeling of recognizing that while a loved one no longer exists, life and nature continue to move on. 

The rapid running of the   

lapping water, a hollow knock

of someone shipping oars:   

it’s eleven years since   

Frank sat at this desk and   

saw and heard it all   

the incessant water, the   

immutable crickets only   

not the same: new needles   

on the spruce, new seaweed   

on the low-tide rocks   

other grass and other water   

even the great gold lichen   

on a granite boulder   

even the boulder quite   

literally is not the same

Remote therapy for grief

Even though grief is completely normal, some people seek outside help to navigate the process more effectively. Remote therapy is one option to help people cope with grief. With remote therapy, a person can meet with a therapist from home or anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection, offering increased space. Through online platforms like BetterHelp, you can specify if you’re interested in meeting with a grief counselor and access online support groups. 

Researchers haven't directly studied remote therapy for grief, but therapy in general has been widely studied for grief. One systematic review looked at 31 randomized controlled trials, and the study authors determined that therapy could effectively reduce grief symptoms in adults. However, some of the studies reviewed returned mixed results.