In the Unwalled City - Robert Cording

n nIn the Unwalled City takes its title from Epicurus, who wrote: Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death, we human beings all live in an unwalled city. This affecting book-which weaves prose memoir with poetry-explores that feeling of being open to attack-in this case the pain of grief after Robert Cording's thirty-one-year-old son Daniel died. n n n nTo borrow a phrase from C.S.

Lewis, here is a grief observed, encompassing not only the big questions but also the impact of grief on daily life. For a poet like Cording, one form that grief takes is that of speaking to his son. In Afterlife, Cording has a vision of his son replying: let the emptiness remain empty .

. . Stop writing down / everything you think I'm telling you.

/ This is your afterlife, not mine.n n n nAt the heart of In the Unwalled City is a series of questions: How does loss change a person? How does one chart a new life that both acknowledges a son's death and still finds a way back to delight? How does one now live fully in the unwalled city?

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