Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning [Paperback]

Steven J. Zeitlin (Author), Ilana Beth Harlow (Author), Teresa Jordan (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2001

Giving a Voice to Sorrow is a heartwarming and healing look at the unique ways many courageous individuals have shaped and enacted their grief through storytelling, personal ritual and commemorative art. Authors Steve Zeitlin and Ilana Harlow provide an inspiring look at the creative and personal ways individuals and communities confront their own deaths, come together to celebrate the lives and memories of those they have lost...and find a balance between remembrance and letting go.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the compassionate heart of Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning is the belief that stories of grief ought to be told and that when they are, and when they are collected into book form, they will offer readers support comparable to group therapy sessions. Authors (and folklorists) Steve Zeitlin and Ilana Harlow "share some of the voices that have saddened and inspired" them in chapters that address matters of storytelling, ritual and ceremony, commemoration, dreams and even signs the dead might leave to comfort the living. In story after story, grief's facets are explored and its sharp edges softened.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Steve Zeitlin is the director and co-founder of City Lore, a cultural center in New York. A popular public speaker, he has served as a commentator on National Public Radio, and is the author of Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling, and numerous other books on America's folk culture.

Ilana Harlow holds a doctorate in Folklore from Indiana University where she wrote a dissertation on traditional Irish narrative. For six years she served as the Folk Arts Program Director at Queens Council on the Arts. She has curated a museum exhibit on the cultures of Queens cemeteries and is currently co-editing a book on death and humor in folklore and popular culture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade (November 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399527176
• ISBN-13: 978-0399527173
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,453,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring and Helpful, November 10, 2001

By 

margaret (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning (Paperback)

I am a hospice worker and I couldn't agree more with the thesis of this book about the importance of creative responses to death -- both for the dying and for the bereaved. And the stories themselves are truly inspiring.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars insightful, compassionate, and inspiring, November 20, 2001

By 

julia (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning (Paperback)

The authors seem to have gleaned many insights about grief and remembrance from their conversations with the bereaved whose inspiring stories are so compassionately presented in this book. The stories illustrate ways people have coped with death through the use of creativity -- crafting commemorative art, personal rituals and stories.

Although you can, of course, read the book cover to cover,you can also just pick it up and browse through it and read a story here and there. My favorite stories are: "The Sauna" (in Jesse's Story"); "Liza's Story" "Mourning Quilts: Portrait of a Personality/Sacred Fabric" "Crafting a Vessel for My Father" "Memorial Walls" "Music to Remember Him" and "One Hundred Stones for Grandfather."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Giving a Voice to Sorrow, November 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning (Paperback)

There are some amazing stories in this book -- really inspiring. Very sad too. I actually cried at some points.

The book is mostly based on conversations with the bereaved who tell about how they responded to loss by creating personal rituals, or commemorative art projects, or telling stories. A lot of these creative responses are ways mourners can physically express their grief and are also ways of keeping the dead present in their lives.

There's a story about a woman who made her father's coffin out of wood. She tells how it was a very satisfying experience to make a safe space for him that would embrace him. There is another story about a woman who worked with a fabric artist to make a quilt out of pieces from her father's favorite old shirt and other fabrics that represent his life -- when she looks at it she thinks of him and remembers what he was like. And there is another story about a little girl who when she was told that her leukemia was terminal, said to her mother "I know how I want to die" and described, and basically staged, her own death scene. Also, there's a section about an entire community in Cape Cod that created many rituals and commemorative art projects when a local teenager died of cancer. There's also a story about a style of graffiti memorial murals painted in New York that was really touching. It made me think about the inner-city community in a new way.

I think it's a book that could help mourners and the dying realize that there are other people going through similar experiences as they are. And it could also give people experiencing loss good ideas about creative ways others have coped.