Funeral Poems, Readings, Music, Quotations & Thoughts

I Wish You Were Here, Dear

Joseph Brodsky was put on trial in his native Russia for 'Social Parasitism' in the 1970s and imprisoned and sent to Siberia for hard labour for his conviction that he had a calling as a poet. He finally fled to the West and was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987. Here he reads a late poem, written in English. A Song I wish you were [...] Read more

The Merry Cemetery

A unique cemetery lies in the village of Sapata in Romania where a local wood carver produced about 800 colorful and celebratory oak tombstones before his own death in 1977. They show images of the lives of the dead and sometimes images of their deaths and many have text panels describing the life of the deceased. There is no somberness here, only [...] Read more