A Grief Cave is a heartbreaking and life-affirming debut collection. In it, Ben Gallagher searches for the “secret face in the dark” of his partner who died suddenly nine years ago. The book—arcing out of darkness toward a new relationship and children, shades of light—remains excruciatingly open despite immense pain. “After a death ... // the exact volume of a cathedral / a lit candle / curve in the road at night ...” Gallagher’s A Grief Cave keeps a steady focus on the world as it evolves around him, pursuing the “trace of desire’s echo” through the passage of time. The result is immersive and cathartic.

Ben Gallagher is a poet, essayist and new father, currently in the middle of a PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, researching non-linear pedagogy and poetic practices in community poetry workshops. Recent poems can be found in untethered, Sewer Lid, The Puritan, (parenthetical) and Arc. He lives in Lunenburg, NS.

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