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Things to Say to a Dead Man: Poems at the End of a Marriage and After
Internationally renowned author Jane Yolen has composed a sequence of tough, angry, and moving love poems that express grief and gratitude for her late husband David, as witness to his treatment for and passing from cancer, and the ongoing loss that is felt years after his death. In one poem, Yolen—a prize-winning poet, speaks of his "shallow bird breath/beating beneath the cage of his chest bones." In "Do not help me to forget./Help me to remember." And in a You have gone before me into winter,
Into spring, into summer, somehow
A consummate time traveler
I can never catch up to,
Always a season ahead. Jane Yolen , often called "the Hans Christian Andersen of America," is the author of over three hundred books, including Owl Moon , The Devil's Arithmetic , and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight . The books range from rhymed picture books and baby board books through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, nonfiction, novels, and story collections for young adults and adults, and two books of adult poetry. Her books and stories have won two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. She is also the winner (for body of work) of the Kerlan Award, the World Fantasy Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Catholic Library's Regina Medal.
Into spring, into summer, somehow
A consummate time traveler
I can never catch up to,
Always a season ahead. Jane Yolen , often called "the Hans Christian Andersen of America," is the author of over three hundred books, including Owl Moon , The Devil's Arithmetic , and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight . The books range from rhymed picture books and baby board books through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, nonfiction, novels, and story collections for young adults and adults, and two books of adult poetry. Her books and stories have won two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. She is also the winner (for body of work) of the Kerlan Award, the World Fantasy Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Catholic Library's Regina Medal.
72 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2011
1 person is currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Jane Yolen
971 books3,230 followersJane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 26, 2011
I get the joy of reading a new poem from Jane each day in November as part of a fundraiser for a literacy initiative out east. But these aren't those poems. While they are treasured--and they show up promptly before 6AM my time--they are not these poems. The poems in Things to Say to a Dead Man are personal. . .and beautiful.
I am immediately reminded of how Jane managed the sonnet form in The Radiation Sonnets. How each of those pieces were so brutally honest it made me hate cancer all the more. . .
Things to Say to a Dead Man reads in four sections: The Dying, The Dead Man, First Year, and After, but it is the introduction that sets the pace for the whole of this collection, gleaned from multiple sources Jane was writing to over the past few years since David's (sorry to be so impersonal, but once you read this collection, one feels as though they know them both) passing.
Jane writes, "Grief arrives in many guises, and carries with it many surprises" (ix). Even in the introduction to these pieces, Jane is carrying a sense of poeisis, a chance to create her own sense of grief. To make her own meaning. To gather grief into herself, process it, and share it forward when the natural tendency may be to keep it all inside.
As I read Jane's pieces in this collection, I am taken back to the older couples I have taken care of in the past either as a medic in the Navy or a caregiver in long-term care facilities. Jane is able to pull us into the places that death resides and to show us the honest stuff of death, how it looks ("Parts of Speech), how it lingers ("Smells"), how we lose ("Taking Your Clothes to the Salvation Army), and ultimately, how we go on ("Fifth Year Anniversary").
The few times Jane repeats a poem from another POV makes for striking pauses ("Things to Say to a Dying Man"/"Things to Say to a Grieving Woman"). Jene repeats and mixes the lines "There there/Hush/Hush/It's alright" in a way that make this not only a strong piece for pausing while reading the collection, but a mentor text in "show; don't tell" even when that showing is found in poetic forms.
The collection comes in at under 60 pages, but one feels that they have been on this five year journey with Jane. In a poetic sense, Things to Say to a Dead Man reads like The Year of Magical Thinking, but whereas Didion required prose to communicate that sense of loss, Jane uses verse.
While thinking about this book last night, I thought about having read TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE with students some 48 times over the past eight years. It just hit me. . .in this beautiful book, we only get mentions of Charlotte, and one brief interaction during the course of the book. Here--in Yolen's work--we get a wife's perspective of the process Morrie discusses in quite different terms. Here, we have the honesty of femininity and nurture, and the brutal honesty that comes of sharing out regarding what day-to-day care rituals look like. For this, I am adding THINGS TO SAY TO A DEAD MAN to the "ladders to TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE" shelf. It would be neat to see teachers use this collection of poetry as an extension piece.
This is a beautiful collection. I have met Jane briefly, but we do get to interact quite a bit at Facebook (where I have been inspired by her daily output of writing as much as I have been entertained by the intermittent curmudgeon that emerges in her status updates). Reading this book draws me closer to this treasure. This loss is a link. Jane's gift of writing is an invitation to come to grief in new ways.
The cover of the finished version is so much nicer than the one shown here at Goodreads. The cover has a picture of a pair of binoculars resting against a shelf of birding books.
If you haven't read a collection of poetry this year, please pick up this one. You've been invited. . .
"Ladder" with:
The Radiation Sonnets
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Last Lecture
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Year of Magical Thinking
I am immediately reminded of how Jane managed the sonnet form in The Radiation Sonnets. How each of those pieces were so brutally honest it made me hate cancer all the more. . .
Things to Say to a Dead Man reads in four sections: The Dying, The Dead Man, First Year, and After, but it is the introduction that sets the pace for the whole of this collection, gleaned from multiple sources Jane was writing to over the past few years since David's (sorry to be so impersonal, but once you read this collection, one feels as though they know them both) passing.
Jane writes, "Grief arrives in many guises, and carries with it many surprises" (ix). Even in the introduction to these pieces, Jane is carrying a sense of poeisis, a chance to create her own sense of grief. To make her own meaning. To gather grief into herself, process it, and share it forward when the natural tendency may be to keep it all inside.
As I read Jane's pieces in this collection, I am taken back to the older couples I have taken care of in the past either as a medic in the Navy or a caregiver in long-term care facilities. Jane is able to pull us into the places that death resides and to show us the honest stuff of death, how it looks ("Parts of Speech), how it lingers ("Smells"), how we lose ("Taking Your Clothes to the Salvation Army), and ultimately, how we go on ("Fifth Year Anniversary").
The few times Jane repeats a poem from another POV makes for striking pauses ("Things to Say to a Dying Man"/"Things to Say to a Grieving Woman"). Jene repeats and mixes the lines "There there/Hush/Hush/It's alright" in a way that make this not only a strong piece for pausing while reading the collection, but a mentor text in "show; don't tell" even when that showing is found in poetic forms.
The collection comes in at under 60 pages, but one feels that they have been on this five year journey with Jane. In a poetic sense, Things to Say to a Dead Man reads like The Year of Magical Thinking, but whereas Didion required prose to communicate that sense of loss, Jane uses verse.
While thinking about this book last night, I thought about having read TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE with students some 48 times over the past eight years. It just hit me. . .in this beautiful book, we only get mentions of Charlotte, and one brief interaction during the course of the book. Here--in Yolen's work--we get a wife's perspective of the process Morrie discusses in quite different terms. Here, we have the honesty of femininity and nurture, and the brutal honesty that comes of sharing out regarding what day-to-day care rituals look like. For this, I am adding THINGS TO SAY TO A DEAD MAN to the "ladders to TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE" shelf. It would be neat to see teachers use this collection of poetry as an extension piece.
This is a beautiful collection. I have met Jane briefly, but we do get to interact quite a bit at Facebook (where I have been inspired by her daily output of writing as much as I have been entertained by the intermittent curmudgeon that emerges in her status updates). Reading this book draws me closer to this treasure. This loss is a link. Jane's gift of writing is an invitation to come to grief in new ways.
The cover of the finished version is so much nicer than the one shown here at Goodreads. The cover has a picture of a pair of binoculars resting against a shelf of birding books.
If you haven't read a collection of poetry this year, please pick up this one. You've been invited. . .
"Ladder" with:
The Radiation Sonnets
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Last Lecture
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Year of Magical Thinking
August 22, 2013
Taken as a whole, this is an excellent narrative cycle about loss and grieving. Some of these poems stand out and are powerful enough to be read on their own, most of them are clear, honest and emotive, but do not make the leap from the subjective to the universal, or the transcendentally subjective, if that makes any sense (I mean something that is so rooted in a particular life or space that it brings it vividly to life and makes you feel you are part of that subjective experience) vividly enough to be great poetry.
Still, I would argue that the voyage described here, through the death of a spouse and on through life thereafter, is as significant as any of the martial themes of the great classical narrative poems and Yolen does a great job of showing us all the facets of her odyssey.
I think at least 4 of these poems are head and shoulders above the rest; of these most of all 'Parts Of Speech' which brilliantly captures the nervous jittery obsessiveness of thought during times of emotional crisis, as Yolen arranges fretful semantic and lexical musings around the barefact of her ailing husband.
Not the finest poetry I have read, but a fine book nonetheless.
Still, I would argue that the voyage described here, through the death of a spouse and on through life thereafter, is as significant as any of the martial themes of the great classical narrative poems and Yolen does a great job of showing us all the facets of her odyssey.
I think at least 4 of these poems are head and shoulders above the rest; of these most of all 'Parts Of Speech' which brilliantly captures the nervous jittery obsessiveness of thought during times of emotional crisis, as Yolen arranges fretful semantic and lexical musings around the barefact of her ailing husband.
Not the finest poetry I have read, but a fine book nonetheless.
July 11, 2012
This review originally appeared in ICCFA Magazine (www.iccfa.com).
Jane Yolen, award-winning author of hundreds of children’s books, became a widow when David, her husband of 44 years, died of brain cancer. “Each grief runs its own course” she says. “In many ways, I am still in mine.” She coped as writers cope with all life problems: by writing. During the course of David’s illness she would sometimes write a poem a day.
THINGS TO SAY TO A DEAD MAN collects the best of these works, spanning a period from before her husband’s death to years after. None of them are long or difficult. They are full of needle-sharp observation distilled into focused words. She writes about the oxygen that David has to inhale, coaxing him to eat, his final coma. She tells of sitting in the car in the cemetery, weeping. There is a poem about gathering up his clothes and taking them to the Salvation Army.
In the last poem, titled “Fifth Year Anniversary,” she sums up her experience of traveling through the desert of mourning:
I am weary but not worried.
The world still turns
and so do I.
Crossing the desert has its own beauty.
An excellent slim volume to give to a bereaved person.
Jane Yolen, award-winning author of hundreds of children’s books, became a widow when David, her husband of 44 years, died of brain cancer. “Each grief runs its own course” she says. “In many ways, I am still in mine.” She coped as writers cope with all life problems: by writing. During the course of David’s illness she would sometimes write a poem a day.
THINGS TO SAY TO A DEAD MAN collects the best of these works, spanning a period from before her husband’s death to years after. None of them are long or difficult. They are full of needle-sharp observation distilled into focused words. She writes about the oxygen that David has to inhale, coaxing him to eat, his final coma. She tells of sitting in the car in the cemetery, weeping. There is a poem about gathering up his clothes and taking them to the Salvation Army.
In the last poem, titled “Fifth Year Anniversary,” she sums up her experience of traveling through the desert of mourning:
I am weary but not worried.
The world still turns
and so do I.
Crossing the desert has its own beauty.
An excellent slim volume to give to a bereaved person.
February 24, 2015
Extremely perceptive and sensitive collection of poems written by well-known author Jane Yolen after the death of her husband. Though this is a short book it is very powerful in its simplicity. This is a useful read for those who have recently experienced the death of someone close, especially a spouse.
May 12, 2013
These are heartfelt poems, and they are sad poems, but what they lack are the lines that make you catch your breath and pause and put down the book for a moment to contemplate. I guess what I am saying is that they are not, ultimately, memorable poems.
October 24, 2023
The first thought that came to mind after reading this collection was "uncomplicated love." I cannot make claims to understand the death of a spouse or the grieving of a 40+ year relationship, but I do know there is a type of loss and grief that is specific to losing someone you love in a pure and uncomplicated way. Some relationships may be polarized and fraught with disagreement or complex feelings, and the result of losing that person will sit with you in a complicated way. But these poems are a beautiful honor to her late husband and a gorgeous example of the loss of a pure and gentle love. They are concise and straightforward in their expression, a clarity that can be at once difficult to come by and yet unavoidable in the wake of someone's death. Personal enough to convey Yolen's own deep ache, but universal in a way that anyone who has lost a loved one can benefit from reading these poems. I appreciated the brief reprieve of humor in "Hospital Bed" which genuinely had me laughing. The standout poem in this collection, in my opinion, is "How Am I Doing, Really?" with its whopper of a last stanza. I had to go back and re-read it multiple times to get the air to return to my lungs. It feels odd to say I love the product of someone's loss, so instead I will say I appreciate that Yolen chose to share this work with the world and this is a collection of poems I will continue to return to as a salve for my own grieving heart.
May 4, 2018
I saw this book when I was at the library a few days ago. I am familiar with Jane Yolen from her children’s books. Many years ago I think I had memorized “How Do Dinosaurs SayGood Night?” as I pretty much read it to my little son every. single. night....I glanced through this before checking it out, and was touched by what she was able to express about the death of her husband. My husband died three years ago, and I wanted to read and study her book, in order to learn more about her experience. Although every loss is different, there are some things about loss that are universal. Jane Yolen, through these poems, was able to express some of the things about the loss of a spouse that are universal. She also chose to share some things about her life with her husband that were more unique, such as his love of birdwatching or some of the activities that they liked to do together. It was pleasant to read those parts, and to know a bit about him. Grief is a lengthy and at times solitary process. Spending some time reading the poems of a fellow traveler on this road made it a bit of a shared journey for awhile.
October 13, 2025
I lost my mother to pulmonary fibrosis in June 2025 and many of the poems in this book captured the feelings and images I experienced. Grief was described in a way that made me feel she had seen the letters written on my heart. The pages of love and loss. This is truly a remarkable work, and I thank you for writing it.
There were many stand out pieces, but “Sitting Down to Eat” absolutely broke me. It was so raw and I felt that experience to my core. It’s what I lived with my mother.
“Coming into Town” was another piece that spoke straight to my heart.
“Five Breaths” gripped me as well.
“How Am I Doing, Really?” Jeez. This one. The last line ripped me in half.
Overall just remarkable writing, but I am deeply sorry for your loss.
There were many stand out pieces, but “Sitting Down to Eat” absolutely broke me. It was so raw and I felt that experience to my core. It’s what I lived with my mother.
“Coming into Town” was another piece that spoke straight to my heart.
“Five Breaths” gripped me as well.
“How Am I Doing, Really?” Jeez. This one. The last line ripped me in half.
Overall just remarkable writing, but I am deeply sorry for your loss.
January 24, 2023
Absolutely lovely. A quiet, direct voice that delivers thoughtful reflection on grief and family and marriage and loss.
I started it twenty-four hours before learning of the loss of a dear friend and colleague, who, like the titular "dead man" of Yolen's collection, lost her own battle with cancer Sunday morning. It was a blessing to have such beautiful poetry right in hand at that moment.
I started it twenty-four hours before learning of the loss of a dear friend and colleague, who, like the titular "dead man" of Yolen's collection, lost her own battle with cancer Sunday morning. It was a blessing to have such beautiful poetry right in hand at that moment.
July 10, 2018
Poems written before and after her husband died.
December 30, 2020
Jane Yolen has published books that are enjoyed by readers (and pre-readers) of all ages. This is a collection of poems written before, and during, and after her husband of 44 years died from cancer. They are amazingly accessible and will likely be treasured by anyone reflecting on loss.
December 31, 2011
From the first poem to the last this is the book I wish I'd written. Yolen's poems written after the death of her husband still speak to my experiences just after my husband's death. For years I wrote what my friends called "Dead Husband Poetry." I think I should have shared more of it instead of tucking it away because over the last 16 years I have looked for works that seemed to speak to my experience in a similar voice and didn't find any. I read almost all the poems in one go and then did it all over again today. Yolen's voice is straightforward,
"I could kill my husband now
in the middle of the night,
if I weren't so intent
on keeping him alive."
she writes in "Hospital Bed."
Particularly in the sections "First Year" and "And After" she hits the nail squarely on the head, "My friends expect me to be over the worst of the grief," she starts, ending "Two Months Later," with "Do not help me to forget. Help me to remember."
I have so many favorites, including "Grief Is Not." I will probably have to buy this book for the reason I buy books, to insist that other people read it.
"I could kill my husband now
in the middle of the night,
if I weren't so intent
on keeping him alive."
she writes in "Hospital Bed."
Particularly in the sections "First Year" and "And After" she hits the nail squarely on the head, "My friends expect me to be over the worst of the grief," she starts, ending "Two Months Later," with "Do not help me to forget. Help me to remember."
I have so many favorites, including "Grief Is Not." I will probably have to buy this book for the reason I buy books, to insist that other people read it.
December 3, 2011
Wow! I think Pollen was in the hospital/ nursing home/rehab center with me. The appeal of this book is probably limited to those who have recently lost a spouse. But she has written the most comforting words I could imagine:
"Grief is not unwelcome here,
For it reminds me of how much I have lost,
And how blessed I was
To have so much to lose."
"Grief is not unwelcome here,
For it reminds me of how much I have lost,
And how blessed I was
To have so much to lose."
July 10, 2015
This book moved me beyond words and inspired me to write my own book of poetry based on a family member's mental illness. Even though Jane wrote about cancer her poem "Parts of Speech" resonated with me. A man who is dead in every sense of the word, yet breaths. How a disease robs us of more than life.
May 16, 2016
Stunning poems about a bleak heart in a beautiful world, about missing someone you love, about carrying on afterward, with life diminished. These are visceral, specific, and painful to read sometimes, but also lovely and somehow comforting.
August 23, 2012
Beautiful poems. You will cry your eyes out. A beautiful portrait of love and marriage, in sickness and in health.
December 14, 2011
So sad and sweet.
April 17, 2017
I have read this little collection of Jane Yolen's poetry before, words of grace she has written to express her own grief and console herself at the death of her beloved husband. In the preface, she states: "These poems come from the months before my husband died, and the hard five years after. No one can tell a griever how to grieve.....grief arrives in many guises and carries with it many surprises." Though the poems are about the loss of a specific person, they are also essentially about grief itself and how to live with the grief process. Her words are breathtaking, both profoundly sad and equally hopeful. Several poems I have quoted to myself over and over, at the loss of people in my own life. Jane Yolen is a master wordsmith, and I am grateful to her for sharing this very personal collection of poems with the world. She is brave.
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