Oops! I Did it Again

 

 

While I was looking for a certain poetry book manuscript in my files yesterday, I saw one labeled “Poetry book on dreams and dreaming.” When I saw that, a thought struck me: Which one?

 

When authors write a book on a topic, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, they usually write one. I have found, however, that I tend to write two.

 

I have written two poetry books on dreams and dreaming: Dream World and Only In My Dreams. One is not very different from the other: Both books contain personal experiences with dreams, as well as thoughts and meditations on the different types of dreams we have.

 

And I have now written two poetry books on the subject of grieving: Poems for the Grieving Heart, as well as my new poetry book, Last Writes. Also, in Last Writes, there are two poems that are similar to each other but they have different titles.

 

I always have to have two of everything, ya know!

 

But even as these two poetry books appear to be on the same topic, they are not. Grieving Heart includes poems on grieving, loss, and bereavement. While there are poems in Last Writes that also fall into these categories, this book also explores death culture, the topic of death, confronting our own mortality as well as personal observances of the death of loved ones.

 

So while these two books are sort of the same, they are not exactly the same. Even so, several years have passed between the two of them, and grief is one of those universal concepts that can bring new ideas and experiences into our lives, so it’s really not surprising that I had more poems to write on this subject.

 

In the case of Last Writes especially, experiencing grief over the loss of my brother did inspire new poems. I have two brothers one who passed away last year, and this particular brother was the first one to pass away. I was experiencing this kind of loss for the first time. Some people may feel that grief is the same no matter which of our loved ones pass away, but in my case, it was a very unique experience for me. Perhaps losing a sibling or a brother is a unique experience for everyone. I certainly did not anticipate writing so many poems while I mourned this loss, though I am grateful that I did. Writing those poems helped me to adjust to it and accept life with this person no longer in it.

 

Around the time that this book was scheduled for release, I was asked to provide a 200-word promo piece for this book, along with an excerpt from the book.

 

Here is what I wrote:

 

Last Writes

Dawn Colclasure

Twisted Dreams Press, 2026

69 ppg. (paperback)

ISBN-13: 979-8187167968

Link

 

 

Last Writes by Dawn Colclasure is a collection of poetry on death, dying, and grief. It allows readers to explore the many facets of death and bereavement, as well as offer comforting verse in times of sadness when we say our final goodbyes.

 

While the subject of death may be morbid to some, it is a transition which we all must one day make. Some cultures honor and celebrate the memories of those who have passed on, while many people reserve a unique interpretation and fascination of death and dying. The poems in the first part of this book reflect these various differences.

 

The sadness we experience when losing a loved one may leave us unable to find the right words to say, and this is where the second part of the book, The Mourning After, can be helpful. Here readers will find poems capturing the many stages of grief, meditations on loss, and gentle passages to share during our final moments with those we love. Mourning the loss of a loved one can be one of the most difficult experiences, and the poems in this book offer a gentle reminder that no one need proceed on this journey alone.

 

 

EXCERPT FROM

 

Last Writes

Copyright © 2026 by Dawn Colclasure

 

 

Death Mementos

 

I can’t carry their deaths with me

Because I promised I would go on

With my life. Doing what must be done.

Living on autopilot.

 

So instead, I will keep their deaths

Up high on a shelf.

Visible daily.

Remembered often.

 

Just one glance

At their deaths

Is enough

To pull me back down.

 

At least, in this way,

Before once again

Glancing up at that shelf,

I can prepare myself with a reminder:

They are gone.

A Public and Private Grief

 

Photo Credit: Sandy Millar at Unsplash

 

They say “write what you know.” For me, I write what I live.

 

Most of the ideas that I have for the things that I write come from real life. Some of these things, such as novels and poems, are inspired by real events. (Some of the poems in my poetry book, Other, are based on real events. They were written after I learned of either the murder or suicides of some people in the LGBTQ+ community.) Other events that happened in my life inspired what I wrote, be it the death of someone I knew, a dream, or actual events that happened to me personally.

 

With a poetry book I have coming out next week, Last Writes, many of the poems in the grief section of the book were written after my older brother passed away last year. Because of this, I dedicated that part of the book to his memory.

 

With another poetry book that I wrote, Poems for the Grieving Heart, I was inspired to write it after grieving the loss of different people in my life. Grief also inspired other poems I wrote in that book where it was not a personal loss.

 

Grief is a major topic in my life right now. Today, I remember how I grieved the loss of one of my best friends, my “wolf sister” July Burke Deadrich, who passed away six years ago. Today is her birthday, so I am remembering her as well as the poem I wrote following her death. I actually wrote two memorial poems for her. One of them was too personal, so I did not choose it as a poem to include in a book of memorial poems which I am writing. I also wrote a poem after her brother passed away, which happened some time before her death. He, too, was my friend, so I was very grieved when I received the news that he was gone.

 

But the poems I write following a person’s death are not always the ones that I will attempt to have published. I want the poems in the memorial poems book to be poems that everyone could relate to and appreciate (which is why I wrote several drafts of the poem for my brother before I finally had one that wasn’t so personal). And I am quietly, privately grieving the recent loss of a cousin who took her life. She, too, will have a poem in this book.

 

But all of this begs the question: Should grief be something that is put on display?

 

One of the comments my editor made while she was editing Last Writes is that one of the poems really captured one of the feelings a person grieving the loss of a loved one is going through. She had that same comment for another poem, one that touches on how a person experiencing loss will have both anger and sadness about a loved one’s death. Both of these poems were written while I was grieving the loss of my brother, so they were both real, honest, and raw in all of their emotions. I held nothing back for those poems I wrote shortly after his passing.

 

Most people may feel that grief should be something that we experience privately. It should be something that we give in to only after we are finally alone again, done with our social obligations. I am reminded of an episode of the TV show Good Times, when the mother of the family smashes a glass bowl, exclaiming “Damn! Damn! Damn!” then giving in to her sadness over her husband’s passing by finally allowing herself to cry. She does this when she is finally alone. This captures so well how many people try to hold in their grief while they continue with their lives – going to work, attending events, going to appointments, etc.

 

Shortly after my sister-in-law, Shannah, passed away at the age of 35, I broke down and cried while I was at work. But I made sure I was alone when it happened, because I did not want to alarm the individuals I was caring for at that time. (If you can get bereavement at your job after a loved one passes, take it. Seriously.)

 

As far as whether or not our grief should be public or private, I think that is a personal choice. In some cases, sharing grief with family members as well as friends can be therapeutic. We never get over our grief, we never see it end. We only learn to live with it. But having someone to talk to about it, especially during the rough patches, can really help us to get through it.

 

But as far as being written about in a book or posted on a blog, like I did with the poem I wrote after my cousin, Mark’s, death? I do this for those they leave behind. Yes, I grieve privately, for myself, but I also grieve publicly, for others. My public grief is there because I want there to be something “out there” that the person’s family and loved ones can appreciate, cherish, and remember someone fondly with. And I want them to know that I share their pain.

 

Grief is a universal experience. It is something which all of us experience. I hope the poems in both of my books – Poems for the Grieving Heart and Last Writes – will give readers something they can relate to, see themselves in, and hopefully find comfort from. These books are a shoulder to cry on, the hand to hold, and the friend to lean on in times of sorrow.

 

For this reason, what’s written should be made public. Absolutely. It should be made available to everyone, but especially for the people who need it. Because most people do.

 

What We Write About When We Write About Death

 

Photo via Shutterstock

 

“How do I write kindly about someone who bullied me?”

 

This is the question that lingered in my mind this week, because that person recently passed away. This situation got me thinking about how we write about death, as well as the people who have passed away.

 

When I told someone about a book I have been writing in which I write poems in memory of people who have passed away, he wanted to know how it was possible for me to write these poems about people that I didn’t even know. That’s right; I have written poems honoring the memory of celebrities, public people, famous people, and important people – and they were all people I never knew or met. People like Michael Landon, Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and even Ozzy Osbourne. I never knew these people. Never met them. But their deaths affected me, so I wrote those poems.

 

When it comes to writing about death, however, that’s when extra care should be used. Death is such a delicate subject to write about. There is so much that we don’t know about death, about the great beyond. We don’t know what it’s like for a person breathing their very last unless we are the ones to do this. We don’t know what people see when they are about to die – though some people have told stories.

 

Death is a subject I have written extensively about, and not just in the scope of grieving the loss of a loved one. In a poetry book that will be released next month, I explore the topic of death as an object of fascination, the superstitions attached to it, the stigma associated with it, as well as how some people crave death so much that they live as though they are not living at all. I have met people who were so obsessed with death that they even pursued careers that had them handling corpses in some way. And a novel I have planned explores one such fascination with death that it drives someone to make it happen in a variety of ways just so he can witness it again and again.

 

Writers have taken other approaches when writing about death. In the novel The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, the story is narrated by Death. In Scythe by Neal Shusterman, Death is also a character, as well as a role in the story. Then there is the portrayal of Death in various movies and plays.

 

The big thing that tripped me up about writing about my former bully, though, was how others would feel after reading what I wrote about him in this poem. Especially his wife and his adult kids. This, too, is one aspect of writing about the death of someone that must be handled delicately. What words will we write about someone after they are gone? How does someone’s death affect us as a whole? Of course, how they lived will affect what we think of them after they have died. It will affect how we feel about them – if we feel anything at all.

 

Ultimately, however, it can depend on our own personal experience with that person. We can’t expect someone who was abused by their parent to write lovingly about that parent after they are gone. We can’t expect someone whose last encounter with a person being a painful one to reflect upon them fondly after they have died. To do so would be fake, and writers are doing a disservice to their readers when they are being fake with their writing.

 

Still, this person’s death was not about me. It was not about how I knew him, my experiences with him, or what I thought of him. I can keep this to myself, in private, but never in something that will last after I, too, must leave this mortal coil.

 

But here I was, presented with this task of writing about someone for my poetry book, and unsure of just how I should write about him, because my experience in knowing this person was more negative than positive. Never mind that he once gave me a ride on his motorcycle. Never mind that he once took me on a test drive when I was learning how to drive. Never mind that he helped me out with a couple of things I was stuck on with a book I was writing. His bullying was what stood out when I remembered him.

 

And that’s not what I wanted to affect the poem I had to write for this book. Because this book is not about me. It is not about how I knew someone. Ultimately, the poems in this book are meant to serve as a lasting testament to a life someone lived. And these poems do not include the bad things they have done while alive.

 

The key to writing about someone in a positive way when we were not close to them when they were alive is to find a method that works best for us. One way to do this is to change the narrative and record the lessons we learned from these people. Or we could change up how we see their death and write about it in a way that feels more comfortable for us. Alternatively, we could write about our very last positive encounter with this person, if there was one, or we could write about their qualities or personality that people liked about them.

 

There is a poem in this book that I wrote about someone who often physically assaulted me, but I did not mention this at all in the poem I wrote about him after he passed away. Other people knew him in different ways that did not include violence, so I kept the violence out of the poem and wrote about his good qualities that made him so likable.

 

Yes, I wrote kindly about a former bully after he passed away. And I know that if I can do that once, for someone I knew for a lesser period of time than my other former bully, then I can do that again.