Grief is so much more than simply sadness. It’s a roller coaster of emotions we experience. We feel anger, fear, frustration, isolation, longing, and heartbreak. These are just a few of the hundreds of emotions we feel when we lose someone we love.

To help better understand and express all the feelings associated with grief — and just in time for National Poetry Month — we’ve compiled poems that help encompass the many different feelings associated with grief.

Feelings of Sorrow

“Fair daffodils, we weep to see / You haste away so soon; / As yet the early-rising sun / Has not attain’d his noon. / Stay, stay / Until the hasting day” — To Daffodils by Robert Herrick

Other poems for feelings of sorrow:

• Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor
• Glacier National Park and the Elegy by Prageeta Sharma
• Seasons of Grief by Belinda Stotler

Feelings of Disorientation

Clouds spout upon her / Their waters amain / In ruthless disdain, / Her who but lately / Had shivered with pain / As at touch of dishonor / If there had lit on her / So coldly, so straightly / Such arrows of rain.” — Rain on a Grave by Thomas Hardy

Other poems for feelings of disorientation:

• Where the Sky Meets the Earth by Todd Kaneko
• Little White Hearse by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• From a Park Bench by Patricia Hooper

Feelings of Frustration

“What on Earth deserves our trust? / Youth and Beauty both are dust. / Long we gathering are with pain, / What one moment calls again.” — Epitaph by Katherine Phillips

Other poems for feelings of frustration:

• Time Does Not Bring Relief by Edna St. Vincent Millay
• A Daughter of Eve by Christina Rossetti
• At the Gate by Henrik Norbrandt

Feelings of Numbness & Shock

“The day is done, and the darkness / Falls from the wings of Night, / As a feather is wafted downward / From an eagle in his flight.” — The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Other poems for numbness and shock:

• There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale
• The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• After the Funeral by Kelly Roper

Feelings of Adjustment

“If we could bring you back again, / For one more hour or day, / We’d express all our unspoken love; / We’d have countless things to say.” — If We Could Bring You Back Again by Joanna Fuchs

Other poems for feelings of adjustment:

• Nature by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The Comfort of Darkness by Galway Kinnell
• Lament by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Feelings of Renewal

“Let the rain kiss you / Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops / Let the rain sing you a lullaby.” — April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Other poems for feelings of renewal:

• In View of the Fact by A.R. Ammons
• Sometimes I Bring You Back by Sarah Spang
• Build, Now, a Monument by Matthew Olzmann

Which poems are your favorite? Share with us in the comment section!