Edward Hirsch's GABRIEL: A POEM is as much about the mystery of his son's life as it is about his mysterious death at 22 years old. Energetic and often out of control, Gabriel's life was unleashed by various personality disorders. He experimented with everything and shied away from few things but slowing down--almost like the doomed who know they have a short time to finish the race--a shooting star through the lives of those who loved him. All this restless energy, this ever quivering vibration of life, coming to a sudden stop as an arrow hitting it's mark compounded the already immense power of death. Left in this wake, Hirsch relies on his strength, poetry, to deal with his grief. The result is a marvel. The author writes to keep his head above water--grief must run its course but to fall below its surface is to risk losing one's way. Not a linear dissection of reality, instead it is a rapid and roiling river of pain moving ever forward but at the same time falling back upon itself to run the same course again. The narration starts at the end, jumps to the beginning and then to various passages in between the way memory does. This leaves you with not just the facts but also the impression of the facts, reality and rumination blended into one. The effect is wave upon wave of Hirsch's anguish and sorrow but as you work through the poem, you realize that it is also a celebration of the life lost. He loves and appreciates all aspects of his son as if for the first time. And not for the last time, for as long as his memories live, so will his son. By the end of reading this book, which I consumed with one massive swallow, I was left not only with Hirsch's sadness, but was again mourning the loss of those I've loved. And it was not a bad thing. I was left a better man. Better able to love and remember and appreciate while I still can. ( )

Heard about this from the Literary Disco podcast, where I am still 3 years behind, and picked it up online. It's a heartbreaking grief memoir in three line stanzas. It is also a commentary on writing about grief and how a life can be appropriated by the writing and what purpose writing about grief serves. Hirsch both memorializes his son and articulates his sadness with crystal clarity. Not sentimental. Not mawkish. This book is both honest and devastating. ( )

Heartbreakingly beautiful, courageous, tragic and (somehow) triumphant. ( )