Review of "Grief is the Thing With Feathers"

It's interesting, to me, that one of the main characters in "Grief is the Thing With Feathers," a classic of grief literature, is a crow.  Or just "Crow."  Gloria liked crows.  She said they were big, and ugly, and they didn't care.  She said they were the bikers of the bird world.

The cover says that "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is a novel.  I kind of dispute that.  It reads more like an extended freeform poem.  Or possibly a collection of similar poetry.  Part of which is concrete poetry.

"Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is hard to understand.  It's confusing.  But then, so is grief.  To a certain extent, you can say that "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is a good representation of grief, because it makes you feel the confusion, and disjointedness, that you feel when you are bereaved and grieving.

Since "Grief is the Thing With Feathers" is poetry, it's probably art.  Since it's art, I am poorly equipped to review it.  I don't understand art.  I don't even know what art *is*.

I can see that there is some value in this text.  As noted, it does portray some of the confusion, disjointed mental states, and weirdness, of grief.  In that sense, it represents grief quite well.  As a grieving widower, I can definitely see that, and even appreciate it.

It does tell people who are experiencing grief, and who may feel that they are going crazy, that no, you are not crazy, other people feel this way when they are bereaved.  Grief does feel crazy.  However, I am not sure that it goes beyond that.  It doesn't tell you an awful lot about grief, other than that grief is crazy and weird, and goes on for a long time.