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Funeral poemsBecky Hemsley

Becky Hemsley

British

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What Serany thinks about Becky Hemsley

Modern Non-religious Plain English

Who they are

Becky Hemsley taught in primary schools before writing full time, and lives in Leicestershire. Six collections since 2021, two of them written entirely for grief. She gives around fifty of her poems away free on her own site.

Why we'd read them at a funeral

She writes the way a friend talks, with nothing to decode. Two whole books are about loss, so there is usually one aimed at the exact death rather than at death in general.

Our favourite of theirs

Where to find Becky Hemsley

Accounts

beckyhemsley.com

@talkingtothewild

@beckyhemsleypoetry

Books

When I Am Gone, front cover

When I Am Gone

I Missed You Quietly Today, front cover

I Missed You Quietly Today

Poems by Becky Hemsley

25 in all

Afterlife

This poem is for a child's funeral, or a family who want somewhere hopeful to put the question without naming a religion. It is playful on purpose.

ModernPlain English

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Afterparty

This poem is for a family being swallowed by the ugly end of grief. It tells them what the anger is made of without asking them to feel better yet.

ModernPlain English

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Again

This poem is for anyone in the first terrible weeks who has caught themselves wishing they had never met. It is the answer to that thought.

ModernPlain English

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All At Once

This poem is for a family who feel they are grieving wrongly, especially anyone who caught themselves laughing. It tells them nothing has gone wrong.

ModernPlain English

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Chasing Tomorrow

This poem is for a family who keep saying they wish they had had more time. It turns that into a resolution instead of a regret.

ModernPlain English

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Firsts

This poem is for a family looking down the barrel of the first year. It does not tell them it gets better, only that it stops happening for the first time.

ModernPlain English

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Flowers

This poem is for a family dreading the first birthday and the first anniversary. It hands back the obligation before anybody has to feel guilty about it.

ModernPlain English

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Friendship

This poem is for a friend, read by a friend. It suits the person who turned up without being asked, over and over, for years.

ModernPlain English

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Glass Balloon

This poem is for anyone frightened that this will not get lighter. It is honest that it might not, and says you get stronger arms instead.

ModernPlain English

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Holding On

This poem is for anyone who thinks they should be further along by now. It describes what the next few years actually feel like, without promising they end.

ModernPlain English

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I'll See You Tomorrow

This poem is for a husband or wife of very many years. It is for the one left doing the nightly routine alone, which is where this kind of grief actually bites.

ModernPlain English

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Invisible Ink

This poem is for a family left with a death that came far too early and made no sense. It does not try to supply the reason they are missing.

ModernPlain English

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July

This poem is for somebody whose whole character was warmth, and who people arranged themselves around. Read by anyone who copied her on purpose.

ModernPlain English

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Just the Way

This poem is for a daughter burying her mother, and especially a service falling anywhere near Mother's Day, which is where it opens.

ModernPlain English

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Lighthouses

This poem is for a grandmother, read by the daughter who is now raising children of her own without her.

ModernPlain English

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One More Day

This poem is for anyone who did not get to say goodbye properly. It stays with one ordinary day rather than a whole life, which is what makes it land.

ModernPlain English

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Quietly

This poem is for someone whose grief nobody has noticed, because they have kept going to work and kept getting dressed. It says the invisible version counts.

Non-religiousTear jerker

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Signs

This poem is for someone who has started noticing robins and is not sure whether to trust it. It tells them to keep looking.

Non-religiousGentle

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Still

This poem is for a husband or wife who flinches every time somebody uses the past tense about them. It gives them the sentence they have been trying to find.

ModernPlain English

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Strong

This poem is for a woman who kept going when nobody could see what it cost her. It is a eulogy for the kind of strength that never looked like strength.

ModernPlain English

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The Flame

This poem is for a mother burying her child. It does not pretend that anything makes this bearable, which is why it can be read in the room.

Non-religiousTear jerker

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What I Learned

This poem is for a mother who raised someone to be sure of themselves. The second half reaches past the family to anyone else in the room who needs it.

ModernPlain English

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When I Am Gone

This poem is for a family who have stopped saying the name out loud in case it upsets each other. It gives them permission from the one person who could.

Non-religiousComforting

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Wonderful

This poem is for a woman who held other people up and never counted it. Its closing wish, that she knew, is the thing a funeral can finally answer.

ModernPlain English

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Woven

This poem is for someone whose habits are full of the person who died. It suits a service that wants warmth rather than weeping.

ModernPlain English

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