The Goodbye Game (2024): A Zine-Style Chapbook About Funerals & Letting Go

Structured as a funeral itself, this collection of twenty poems was born out of Courtney Stanton’s multiple attempts to write a eulogy for his estranged father, whose memorial was delayed for over three years due to the pandemic. As time dragged on, Stanton saw changes in his understanding of what it means to die, mourn, love, and let go. In a way, each poem is a bereavement poem: weaving together the deaths of his father, various relationships, those sacrificed to the pandemic, our planet, and past versions of himself. 

With vulnerability and introspection, Stanton illustrates the nature of heartbreak and loss appearing in the most profound events, like his father’s suicide, and the most unremarkable moments, like yard work with his husband.

In The Goodbye Game, he reminds us that while grief is a part of life, it also never stops changing.

Content warning: some of these poems refer to incest, sexual assault, and suicide.