Readers call William's poetry "breath-taking", "refreshing" and "relatable to anyone".

The Grief We're Given explores the collective and personal experience of grief and grieving through themes and tropes such as relationships, love, loss, nature, eternity, and hope as a thinning, but exuberant, door. How are we to learn to grieve when it feels unrelenting? How are we to adore and memorialize small moments of appreciation? How are we to shape our grief into something worth celebrating, and begin to understand the grief we give?

Author: William Bortz
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Central Avenue Poetry
Published: 02/02/2021
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.40h x 6.20w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781771682190


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/18/2021

About the Author
William Bortz (he/him) is a husband, poet, and editor from Des Moines, IA. His poems appear in Okay Donkey, Oxidant Engine, Empty Mirror, honey & lime, Turnpike Magazine, Back Patio Press, the Lyrical Iowa Anthology, and others. He is the author of Shards and the chapbook The Sky Grew Back with Clouds. Growing up, William spent time in foster care, in homelessness, and in shelters. His aim in writing is to explore how joy lives in uncertainty and mourning.