Losing Andrew: Disenfranchised grief in Shelly Wagner's poetry

 On first glance, grief seems easy to define: it is simply the sadness or sorrow caused by someone’s death. People who have experienced grief know how difficult it can be. Those who have seen others grieving can imagine the challenges that come with it (Shear & Shair, 2005). But it is this feeling of universality, this ‘easy-to-define-ness’, that makes grief controversial. Despite its universal nature and the proliferation of literature which examines it, there is considerable evidence that the ‘concept of grief is plagued by vagueness and ambiguity’ (Cowles & Rodgers, 1991, p. 119).