Poems by

Janice Kingsley

Gentle, honest poems for grief, heartbreak and love. Short enough to read on a long night.

See the books
Gentle Poems for the Heart

Three books, three seasons of the heart

Ninety-five short poems in each, written in plain, tender language with soft watercolour paintings throughout. Read them slowly, a page at a time. Now in paperback and Kindle on Amazon, and still free to read and listen to on Google Play.

Where You Are Now by Janice Kingsley, book cover
Grief

Where You Are Now

Gentle Poems for Grief, Loss and the Love That Stays

For anyone who still makes two cups. The phone call that splits life into before and after, the quiet months, the coat still on the hook, and the slow discovery that the people we love never really leave.

Ebook on Google PlayAudiobook on Google Play
Read a poem

One from each book

The poems are short, so you can read one standing at the kettle.

The Second Cup

I still make two cups some mornings. Not because I forget - because I remember too well. The second one goes cold on the counter, and I let it, the way you used to let me talk too long about nothing. Grief is not the absence of you. It is the habit of you, still reaching for the second cup.
From Where You Are Now

The Night You Said It

You said it in the kitchen, of all places, with the tap still running and a tea towel in your hand. You said it gently, which was worse. I remember thinking someone should turn the tap off, and that it couldn't be me, because I had forgotten how hands work.
From Still Learning to Leave

The Orange

The train was late and packed, and you had the only seat across from mine, and a paperback, and an orange. You peeled it in one long curl without looking up, then held out half as if we'd known each other for years. I have been given diamonds since. Nothing has ever come close to that orange.
From You Still Give Me Butterflies
Watch a poem

Poems, read aloud

Each poem with its painting, read in a quiet voice over soft piano.

The Night You Said It
The Last Kiss
The Car Pulling Away
Watercolour of a cottage door left open onto a spring garden
About

Janice Kingsley

Janice Kingsley writes gentle, honest poems for the biggest moments of the heart. Her poems are about the small, ordinary things that loss and love change: the second cup, the coat on the hook, the side of the bed, the song you cannot skip.

Where You Are Now is her first collection. Still Learning to Leave and You Still Give Me Butterflies complete the series, Gentle Poems for the Heart.