Yes, this is truly amazing!

A whole area of life few know anything about. Let's hear it for the Registrar!

The funeral poem has become one of the many, many neglected areas.

Try sending a eulogy to a magazine these days! You'd get nothing, no matter how good it is.
The damningly infuriating blindness of fad and fashion.
To be fully realized and rounded people we have to do so much (most) of what is not fashionable.

These experiences are invalauable.

This is very interesting.

At the time of death of a loved one, people want concise expression of powerful feelings and some form of ceremony that will be meaningful. I am an atheist and would not accept religious ceremony, but the small number of non religious funerals that I have attended have lacked power, passion and impact in the way that religious organisations have built up of centuries.

Many people have had little experience of poetry and I am not surprised that their initial inclination is that they do not want it in the funeral of their relative.

Congratulations Hilary on helping people towards more choices. I do hope that this grows and develops.

Maybe it already exists, I don't know, but it would be nice if a compendium of suggested poems for funerals might be put together in the same way religious organisations have suggested combinations of religious music and readings.

You see poetry everywhere in graveyards (albeit not always original). So in some respects people must feel a need for poetry to help them through the grieving process.
Although some critics did not take her seriously Patience Strong met a lot of people's needs in relation to this.
I had a job for a short time working in a graveyard and noticed that a couple had bought a plot complete with headstones engraved with D. O. Bs just waiting for end date to be chiselled in. So if people take such steps, I don't see why Hilary's offer should be a put off. Just good practical sense. After you.

I like the Yeats one that goes something like:

Under bare ben Bulben's head
In a graveyard Yeats is dead
his ancestor was rector therein
oh bugger me, it's dusty bin.

Something like that, anyway.
Not a very good clue, now I think about it.

Interesting. I've actually had two poems used for funerals. one which I won't reproduce here because I was requested to write it for friends and family of the deceased, who I did not know. It was also used on memoriam cards that they also asked me to design and have printed (at very short notice - there was no advanced planning) - The family loved it so I was a happy man.

I should say that on being asked to write that one I was initially reluctant but it is hard to turn down people who have such an immediate and emotional need.

The other poem was not written for a funeral but was written about memories of my grandmother when she was still alive. It is called The Churn and has been read at WOL a couple of times. There were over 500 people at her funeral and reading it there, for her, was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

The funny thing is that it has since been used at more than a dozen other funerals in the West of Ireland by people I don't even know - but it brings back memories for them also. And yes I did give permission, via one of my aunts who has distributed 50 or more copies, for it to be used by whoever wants to, and am just happy if it was of value to some other people.

Has anyone else been in such a boat and how did it feel?

I have written a number of poems for close friends who have died,to show relatives and others that I cared and wished to share my feelings with them. I have also written memorials on request as it does seem to help those grieving to have something written especially for them.