Poetry allows our hearts to hover in that mysterious realm that lies between life and death, to catch glimpses of our soul

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

I have been well-acquainted with grief. As a Shiʿi Muslim, it permeates my religious consciousness and finds expression through annual mourning rituals. I find nourishment in mourning: from a young age I have lent my ears to lamentations and shed tears for martyrs felled in far-off lands.

Recently though, grief, paid a more personal visit when news reached me of my grandmother’s passing. In response, I turned to my favourite poem, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H., which ranks among the most profound and poignant elegies ever penned, in any language.

I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;

Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm and Islamicate intellectual history. More of his writings can be found on his Substack page