Sorry, We No Longer Offer Bereavement Fares
Sorry, We No Longer Offer Bereavement Fares records the intensity and absurdity of enduring grief after the death of a brother. As darkly humorous as they are deeply felt, these poems aim their anger at Southwest Airlines, their suffering toward Pema Chödrön and Mary Oliver, and scorn in the direction of Randall Jarell and a problematic cat. Grief is unpredictable and wild, creating an urge to retreat from and lash out at a world that insists on going on; yet the fever-pitch cannot last forever. In this concise collection, Van Prooyen’s poems navigate ferocity and futility brought on by deep sorrow but turn and return to memory as a balm; the sting of loss simmers down, and the ache of missing reverberates like the greatest scream in the history of Rock & Roll.
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Praise and Reviews
With punch and pith, Sorry, We No Longer Offer Bereavement Fares calls out hope as the “hoax” it can be yet offers relief by truly acknowledging irresolvable losses. Such poetry wouldn’t presume to tell us how to carry on after a loved one’s death, but exhilarating cadences—unflinchingly realistic and distilled, conversational, lush, and lyrical—propel the pages forward. Van Prooyen’s poems— and a pansy, a peppermint, the smallest shining things as she presents them—make me glad to be in this world.
Rose McLarney, author of Colorfast, Forage, and Its Day Being Gone
Sorry, We No Longer Offer Bereavement Fares is a collection of striking poems built from a powerful grief. Laura Van Prooyen writes “See? / I’m scooping a little sunshine into each dark hole,” but this isn’t a poet aiming for easy comfort. She dives directly into the abyss of personal loss, and the poems that emerge from that dark hole are full of rage and sorrow and ready to wrestle God.
Matthew Olzmann, author of Constellation Route, Contradictions in Design, and Mezzanines