The Farewell Suites

The Farewell Suites is a collection of poems dealing with death and grief and arranged in sets focused on different members of the poet's family--a brother who committed suicide, a child who died before birth, a father who slipped into delirium as he slipped out of life. These finely crafted poems capture the movements of the heart and are stunning tributes to love, patience, acceptance, and forgiveness. Though focused on the poet's own loved ones, the poems speak of and to the hearts of all readers, expressing our shared anxieties and sorrows at the passing of those we love. The collection as a whole is deeply comforting, being shot through with both human warmth and heavenly hope. Indeed, Lansdown's farewells anticipate reunion, when at last our mortality is overwhelmed by immortality.