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A librarian once remarked that she receives many requests for information about poetry when poems are read during the televised funerals of celebrities or dignitaries and when poems are read at funerals in popular movies. During these occasions, the general public is exposed to poetry in emotional circumstances, and the experience seems to have a profound impact on the audience.
On these occasions, people who do not ordinarily read poetry are inspired to learn more about it and to research poetry for use when suffering from the death of a loved one. This interesting observation merits an examination of why poetry is ideally suited for funerals, memorial services, and private grieving, and why it seems to have a universal appeal when appropriate poems are used to cope with death.
Poems For Bereavement And Remembrance
People who experience the death of a loved one endure a storm of emotions. There is intense grief along with a sense of confusion or uncertainty that understandably comes from a personal encounter with the mysterious realm of death. The sense of loss also urges mourners to seek comfort with each other.
The experience of desiring comfort and peace in a time of sorrow, searching for answers and understanding about life and death, and sharing the whole experience with an assembly of mourners is perfectly suited to the contributions of poetry as described by some of the greatest poets themselves.
Samuel Butler wrote that suffering helps to make poets grow. Robert Frost wrote that a poem begins as a lump in the throat and a sense of wrong, like a lovesickness or a homesickness. If this is true, poets are able to relate to the misery of the bereaved and offer them comfort and peace.
William Faulkner wrote that it is the privilege of poets to help humanity endure and prevail by lifting their hearts. Pablo Neruda wrote that peace is essential in the making of a poet, and that peace is as important to a poet as flour is to bread. Perhaps this explains why so many bereaved people find peace by reading poetry.
Besides offering comfort and peace to those who are suffering, poetry can also help mourners who ponder the mystery of death and who struggle to find the right words to describe what they are feeling. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote that nobody becomes a great poet without first becoming a great philosopher, and Matthew Arnold wrote that poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and effective way of saying things. This explains why poetry is so often relied on for effective eulogies, sympathy cards, and messages of condolence.
There is an expression that death and taxes are the only certain things in life. The human family is united in their common mortality, and the death of one person usually brings a large extended family together. Poetry also has the power to unite people. William Wordsworth wrote that regardless of differences in language, laws, and customs, poetry has the ability to unite everyone on the earth and throughout time. It is easy to see why so many suffering people find poetry to be an indispensable component of the grieving process.
Poetry at Funerals - The Power of Poems to Comfort the Bereaved
To ensure being prepared with appropriate words for eulogies, sympathy cards, remarks of condolences, or for private grieving, visit http://www.usfreeads.com/2218593-cls.html for a beautiful collection of 250 poems, readings, and quotes that will offer comfort to those who mourn the loss of a loved one.
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