Grief's Shadowed Path: Poems of Loss and Healing

Within these pages the reader will find encouragement, insights and reflections, which give expression to the common experiences of death and grief.The book offers a new and innovative approach to the experience of grief by using the pastoral genre of poetry. Hilary leads the reader through the shadows of death to the possibility of renewed hope and life with searing honesty and tender reflections.

About the Author :
Hilary Smith is a writer, poet, theologian and retreat giver. She is also curator and editor of Moments, which publishes online writing and poetry to an international readership for Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. With a PhD in Practical Theology, Hilary has wide experience in pastoral care. Her particular interest is in supporting people who are bereaved and those living with any kind of loss. Her retreats and workshops offer safe, compassionate and gentle spaces for the tending of grief and the nurturing and strengthening of body, mind, and spirit.

Review :
The sheer honesty of Hilary Smith’s poetry plumbs the heart of grief. The words she chooses are seemingly simple, yet they express the complexity of chaos that we experience in the wake of loss and bereavement. Her poems were borne out of her own stories of loss, but as I read them, I hear my own stories and know that I am not alone. This collection is far, far more than emotional catharsis. It contains profound insights and deep wisdom. Grief’s Shadowed Path is a taonga. — Alister G. Hendery (Pastor, writer, and author of Earthed in Hope: Dying, Death & Funerals); These intensely personal poems resonate with love of place and environment and, more importantly, with the love between daughter and father, close friends and family. While these poems arise specifically from Hilary’s grief following the death of her father, they are a reminder to the reader that grief is many-faceted and reshapes our sense of self. — Lynne Frith (Poet, teacher, theologian, and Methodist Presbyter, Auckland); Grief’s Shadowed Path, takes us to a heart-wrenching encounter with death. Hilary Smith’s poetry reveals the vulnerability of self-realisation when death of a loved one threatens to swamp personal response and disturb being understood by others. In the best of senses, this courageous book, simply, offers means for personal reflection and meditation. Hilary reveals her heart, broken, yet in her loss, finding a legacy of renewal and strength. — John Fairbrother (Priest, poet, and former Director of Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat and Conference Centre, Auckland)