In the face of all of the painful loss that has occurred in the past month, both for families in Newtown, Connecticut and personally for members our own staff, the Writing University would like to share this video from the Poetry Foundation about grief and the healing aspects of poetry, by Mary Jo Bang.

Mary Jo Bang is professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program at Washington University. Her fifth book, Elegy, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, examines the pain and grief following the death of her son. 

Mary Jo Bang Examines Grief's Poetic Form, the Elegy

Image: Observation Drawing, by Laurie Steen