Uprooted: The Season of Grief is a fierce, tender benediction for those navigating the quiet devastation of losing a parent—the kind of grief that rearranges your bones. In this soul-spun collection, Mary Ann Burrows invites us into the holy tangle of mourning—a place where sorrow lives in the marrow.
These poems do not flinch. They weep and wail and whisper. They let you fall—hard, if you need to—and stay with you as you kneel in the dirt, not to break but to remember where you come from. They do not offer quick fixes or polished endings. They root down beside you, and from that dark, tender place, they begin to grow things.
With the turning of each season, Uprooted asks us to stay awake to our grief, to cradle it, to let it teach us how to live more vividly. Rooted in nature, steeped in memory, and written with the raw grace of a heart split open, this book is both elegy and offering.
Read it if your love still aches.
Read it if you want to remember how to bloom after the burning.
Uprooted: The Season of Grief is a fierce, tender benediction for those navigating the quiet devastation of losing a parent—the kind of grief that rearranges your bones. In this soul-spun collection, Mary Ann Burrows invites us into the holy tangle of mourning—a place where sorrow lives in the marrow.
These poems do not flinch. They weep and wail and whisper. They let you fall—hard, if you need to—and stay with you as you kneel in the dirt, not to break but to remember where you come from. They do not offer quick fixes or polished endings. They root down beside you, and from that dark, tender place, they begin to grow things.
With the turning of each season, Uprooted asks us to stay awake to our grief, to cradle it, to let it teach us how to live more vividly. Rooted in nature, steeped in memory, and written with the raw grace of a heart split open, this book is both elegy and offering.
Read it if your love still aches.
Read it if you want to remember how to bloom after the burning.
The Unraveling
Grief does not arrive all at once; it begins in the silent fractures, in the spaces between what was and what will never be again. When we lose someone we love, it feels as if our roots have been pulled from the earth, and we are left bare, dangling between the past and the un-known. And yet—there is something sacred in the breaking, some-thing tender in the falling apart. For in the unraveling, we see that grieving is not only absence, but presence, not just sorrow but love.
In the season of grief,
I learned
that roots can grow
from air as surely
as they grow
from earth.
— Mary Ann Burrows
AUTUMN
HERE, IN FALL’S RICH UPHEAVAL, GRIEF BECOMES AN ART—both holy fracture and hallowed uncovering—where sorrow carves pathways, deep and dark, through the marrow of our being. We must journey bravely through these unchosen moments, seeking grace in shadows, exposing truth beneath our feet, learning, as the poets do, to hold pain as praise, as prayer, as possibility.
Uprooted
I feel the ache of earth removed,
my roots exposed, hanging bare—
soggy soil slipping
once held, now sagging.
The sun is harsh,
its light too sharp, too unforgiving. I am left exposed, lost between the dead and living,
lost in the quarried space,
learning to grow in what remains.
Fallen Wings
So strange—
I couldn’t run. I stumbled
to the earth.
He smiled, reached for my hand, his wings
falling softly at his feet.
No thunder, no cry,
just quiet surrender,
feathers scattered, drifting—
like the day he left earth— letting go of flight.
We stood together, wingless,
in splendour of
the free fall.
Auora Borealis
When death comes,
let the sky open—
green light rippling
like the breeze on water,
red streaks slipping between the stars.
Let the trees stand witness,
dark silhouettes against the glow,
let the river keep moving,
stones worn smooth by years of rain.
No need for a name then,
no need for words,
only the deep thrum of charged air,
the steady burn of sky,
the endless work
of becoming light.
Let it dance—writhing, shifting, swaying—
for the ones I’ve loved,
its brilliance spilling across their faces
like the memories we shared—
bright, untouchable, alive.
May the earth quiver beneath them,
the sky bending low
to hold their grief,
and may they feel, in that moment,
that I am there,
woven into the glow.
Uprooted - A Season of Grief is the new poetry collection from author Ann Burrows. Living near Vancouver, Burrows turns her pen towards a reflective collection that centres around themes of grief and grief survivorship. Spanning 108 pages, Uprooted bases itself around the four seasons, from Autumn to Summer. The collection is bookended with a foreword from Rick Diamond, a personal friend of Burrows, and an epilogue penned by the author.
Uprooted is focused purely on grief and Burrows' handling of it following the tragic loss of her father. While there are occasional glimpses of optimism and joy, the focus on loss is very much present throughout. Regardless of the "season", Burrows raw emotion and determination is evident throughout. Personal highlights include the poems "0 Avenue", "Letting Go", and "The World Needs Poets". In one touching poem, "Sorrow is a Stone", Burrows manages to capture the essence of grief in one succinct stanza:
Grief is a cold draft—
howling through lava rock walls,
then gone, its echo lingering,
sprinkled on the ground like rain,
woven through the air like lemon eucalyptus.
Where a multitude of poets and authors struggled to convey grief, Burrows only needs five lines to distil an entire emotion. And the above comes from a poem located early in the collection, it is not even the final flourish. Instead, it calmly sets the scene for the exploratory works that follow, varying from the superficial to the abstract. In addition to this, there has to be a small, but notable, mention to the artwork which features on both the cover design and transferred over into black and white for each "season" heading. There are few words to say, it's a beautiful piece of design.
Crafted using a combination of traditional and unorthodox poetry structures, Uprooted is an emotionally charged ride, start to finish. For a book so short, there is so much to take away.
AEB Reviews