About These Poems
Imelda Almqvist began writing these poems in May 2009 while sitting by her father's deathbed in the Netherlands. They emerged from the raw, immediate experience of witnessing a parent's final days and the grief that followed.
The poems explore themes of energy, phase transitions, and the difficult art of letting go. They offer an intimate window into how loss reshapes our inner landscape and our relationship to those we love.
The poems on this page emerged from a deeply personal threshold, written in the quiet hours beside a parent's final bed. They trace the raw geography of grief, where energy does not vanish but transforms, and where presence gives way to an enduring, invisible connection. These verses are not polished elegies but honest companions for anyone navigating the liminal space between holding on and letting go. They speak to the soul's resilience when faced with the great phase transition of death, and they remind us that loss reshapes our inner world in ways that can be both devastating and strangely sacred.
Imelda Almqvist's work as a shamanic painter and poet often explores the passage between worlds, and this collection of poems is no exception. Here, the themes of energy and transformation that run through her visionary paintings find a different voice, one that is intimate and unguarded. The poems invite the reader to sit with the difficult art of release, to witness how the fabric of love stretches but does not break when physical form falls away. They are a testament to the enduring bond that exists beyond the threshold of visible life, written from a place of immediate, lived experience.
Loss is a journey into the inner world, and these poems map that territory with honesty and tenderness. Drawing on the same shamanic sensibility that informs Imelda's paintings, they acknowledge the sorrow of separation while honoring the thread of connection that persists across the veil. The words carry the weight of real grief, yet they also hold space for the subtle shifts in perception that occur when we are stripped of familiar presence. For anyone walking through the landscape of bereavement, these poems offer a companion that does not offer easy answers but instead validates the complexity of the grieving heart.
Themes
- Energy and transformation — the shift from presence to absence, and the enduring connection beyond physical form.
- Phase transitions — the threshold between life and death, and the liminal space grief occupies.
- Letting go — the slow, painful process of release and the unexpected grace found within it.
Poetry as Sacred Practice
For Imelda Almqvist, poetry and painting are intertwined expressions of the same shamanic impulse — to journey inward, to witness what is hidden, and to bring back something true. These poems carry the same spirit that animates her sacred art: a willingness to sit with mystery, to honour what is passing, and to find meaning in the depths of human experience.