In the Unwalled City

<p><strong><em>In the Unwalled City</em> takes its title from Epicurus who wrote: Against other things it is possible to obtain security but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.</strong> This affecting book-which weaves prose memoir with poetry-explores that feeling of being open to attack-in this case the pain of grief after Robert Cording's thirty-one-year-old son Daniel died. </p><p> </p><p>To borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis here is a grief observed encompassing not only the big questions but also the impact of grief on daily life. For a poet like Cording one form that grief takes is that of speaking to his son. In Afterlife Cording has a vision of his son replying: let the emptiness remain empty . . . Stop writing down / everything you think I'm telling you. / This is your afterlife not mine.</p><p> </p><p>At the heart of <em>In the Unwalled City </em>is a series of questions: How does loss change a person? How does one chart a new life that both acknowledges a son's death and still finds a way back to delight? How does one now live fully in the unwalled city? </p>