‘Instead of a Card’ poetry booklets make perfect presents – unusual, beautiful, worthwhile and definitely not for throwing away.

They come with an envelope and bookmark left blank for your message.

This anthology contains 30 poems of bereavement selected for their beauty and for the sense of consolation that they offer. There are poems that question and mourn, alongside others that accept the inevitability of death and give thanks for a life well lived.

Poems old and new reflect on the experience of losing a much-loved parent, child, sibling or friend, as well as on the immense loss of life in the two World Wars. For those arranging a funeral or simply seeking the quiet company of words to help them through the long process of grieving, this varied and reflective selection is sure to offer comfort:

“I lie here in a riot of sunlight

Watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.”

from ‘Everything is Going to Be All Right’ by Derek Mahon

Poems by WH Auden, Laurence Binyon, Robert Burns, Catullus, Billy Collins, Wendy Cope, Emily Dickinson, Sasha Dugdale, Paul Durcan, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lorna Goodison, Thomas Gray, Matthew Hollis, Jackie Kay, Faith Lawrence, John McCrae, Derek Mahon, Sue Millard, Adrian Mitchell, Peter Porter, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Michael Rosen, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, Penelope Shuttle, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain and Anna Wigley.

Cover illustration by Lizzie Adcock.