Grief Said, "Have a Seat."

by Amanda G. Elsbury

Feeling overwhelmed after the sudden death of her father, Amanda sought an outlet to help process her complicated grief. Poetry became a safe retreat for an otherwise ponderous journey.

In this book of free-verse and rhyme-blended poems , Amanda helps others recognize diverse aspects of their own grief with pause and honesty. Humans have three primary the head , heart, and spirit (or energy) . Thoughts and introspection come most naturally to Amanda's logical mind, but death and grief are complex experiences, and she needed outward expression so all of her could have a voice.

This turned into an almost journal type of experience, with Amanda cataloging emotions, thoughts, and observations of grief and death during that first year after her father passed. Throughout this experience of loss, she noticed many people around her also struggling with the death of loved ones. Grief is so varied, so she has included some brief stories of their heartache and thoughts on coping as well. Though her poetry journal started as a personal project, it quickly grew into a creation that anyone who has lost a loved one could connect with.

The first poem in the book was read at her father’s funeral and the last poem was written on the anniversary of his death.
These pages are essential for all who seek vulnerable grief literature. Within this book, readers will find an honest portrayal of accepting (and sometimes fighting ) a reality we all must Death, sorrow, and loss.

128 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2023

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up four books from the Library’s New Releases shelf for National Poetry Month, including, against my better judgment, Amanda G. Elsbury’s Grief Said, “Have a Seat.” Having just read Tracy K. Smith’s Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times, her argument that “a poem might leave one reader cold not because it has failed in its aims, but because that person is, for the time being, uninterested in the stakes of the poem’s chosen material,” comes to mind. I’m not immune to the processing of grief, nor would I question or challenge anyone’s means of doing so, and if the writing and assembling of this book “[t]o honor her father’s memory and offer more material on grief to the public” was helpful for Elsbury or for any of its readers, kudos to her for actualizing it. I can get behind wanting to honor her father’s memory, but does the public need more material on grief for the sake of nothing more than having more material on grief?

That doesn’t sound like a compelling argument for the existence of this collection. In fact, it sounds pretty tepid. Worse still, for me at least, is the religiousness that pervades the book, the kind that Christians of a certain sort exude as naturally as breathing, but comes off to me as nauseating proselytizing. And, worse than that, are the poems themselves. Structurally, they’re all centered and nearly all single-stanza, as if a poem’s form is irrelevant or unimportant to its success. Fundamentally, they lack emotional complexity, leaving the reader to tread water in the shallows of Elsbury’s grief rather than plumb the depths of the feelings that led her to write in the first place. What they lack is imagery, and “Without them,” Smith writes, “poet and reader are constrained to imagine or recollect from a distance, and from a place of thought or abstraction rather than one of visceral engagement.”

That is, the poems struck me as amateurish. To wit: “It might be possible / that some of the people / who cry the loudest / are experiencing the most regret / They left too much unsaid / Not enough got fixed before their person went / and they break in two with wailing.” Or, “I am sad and happy / calm and a little bit crazy / angry while also grateful / Here is my heart / Thank you for holding it, O Invisible Ones / and lovable humans in my circle.” Or, “You said that you loved me / And. You. Left. / What am I supposed to do with that?” I could grab a snippet of any of the three dozen-plus poems herein to make my case, and you’d either buy my argument or wonder if I was dropped on my head as a child. Maybe Smith was right, and I wasn’t interested in the stakes of the poem’s material. Or maybe Smith was right, and the lack of imagery made it impossible for Elsbury’s grief to strike a nerve, for her poems to create emotional resonance. I think both are true. It’s my fault for picking up the book. It’s Elsbury’s for not making me feel more once I did.

[Myranda Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poems takes a raw and all-encompassing look at all the messy emotions that come with grief. The author’s hurt and anger is as potent as her search for hope, purpose, and beauty in spite of inevitable tragedy. Amanda Elsbury’s book is the first I’ve read that really takes the time to tackle the questions we all ask after suffering loss: how do we carry on without someone we always thought would be there? How do we accept that other loved ones will die? The author admits there is no clear answer or right way, but there is an element of solidarity in suffering provided through her vulnerability that shows us we are not alone. Through it all, this book gives us permission to grieve messily, openly, and honestly. You won’t regret reading this book!

[PottWab Regional Library]

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