Lessons In Grief from the Lives and Deaths of Poets

Join us for a thoughtful, carefully held conversation with J. T. Welsch, author of The Poetry of Suicide -Lessons in grief from the lives and deaths of poets
In this event, Welsch reflects on poetry’s long engagement with suicide, drawing together literary voices such as Hamlet, Dante, Sylvia Plath, and Vladimir Mayakovsky with the deeply personal history of suicide within his own family. Rather than offering answers or conclusions, the conversation explores ambiguity, contradiction, and the limits of interpretation, asking what poetry can teach us about experiences that resist simple explanation.
This is not a clinical or sensational discussion, but a reflective one that considers how poetry allows us to sit with difficulty, complexity, and uncertainty, and how it can return a human dimension often lost in public discourse around suicide.
The event will take place as a guided conversation, with space for listening, reflection, and audience questions.
Please note: this event engages with themes of suicide and death. A gentle content note and support resources will be shared. Attendees are welcome to step out at any point.

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Host or Publisher Poetry Pharmacy- Deborah Alma