The Grief We’re Given

Readers call William's poetry "breath-taking", "refreshing" and "relatable to anyone".

The Grief We’re Given explores the collective and personal experience of grief and grieving through themes and tropes such as relationships, love, loss, nature, eternity, and hope as a thinning, but exuberant, door. How are we to learn to grieve when it feels unrelenting? How are we to adore and memorialize small moments of appreciation? How are we to shape our grief into something worth celebrating, and begin to understand the grief we give?

“With their quiet intensity and graceful questioning, these verses will pull you inside yourself and out into mysterious communal joy.”—Christine Jewel, author of Fading Through

“A luminous and consistently breathtaking exploration of grief, Bortz’s stunningly crafted writing will stay with you long after its final exhale.”—Blake Auden, author of Murmuration

“The imagery is tangible; the metaphors are breathtaking. The depth of this collection makes it one worth reading again and again.”—Davis John Patton, singer/songwriter

"In traditional elegiac mode, Bortz invites his reader through moments of grief and sorrow until we arrive at consolation and solace. The movement ebbs and flows toward the loss of love, people, and place with a steady hand that crafts the speaker’s own sentiment toward loss without falling into sentimentality or the precious." —Ruben Quesada, Author of Revelations

"Bortz delivers a subtle portrait of violence and endurance, and an intriguing work that places varied experimental forms in dialogue with one another." —Publishers Weekly

William Bortz (he/him) is a husband, poet, and editor from Des Moines, IA. His poems appear in Okay Donkey, Oxidant Engine, Empty Mirror, honey & lime, Turnpike Magazine, Back Patio Press, the Lyrical Iowa Anthology, and others. He is the author of Shards and the chapbook The Sky Grew Back with Clouds. Growing up, William spent time in foster care, in homelessness, and in shelters. His aim in writing is to explore how joy lives in uncertainty and mourning.