Death, dying, and memorialization are central to how we see ourselves and tell the world where we position ourselves in relation to others in society. This chapter introduces Neil Whitehead’s Poetics model. Initially formulated to understand group-level violence, this model can also be used to understand how mortuary activities can be used for identity formation and social negotiation. This extends past body manipulation to processes of memorialization that involve the body either in physical or symbolic form. This chapter also sets out the structure of the volume, with short descriptions of the five parts of the volume. Part I (Chaps. 2 – 5 ) details the development of a model of Poetics in bioarchaeology. Part II (Chaps. 6 – 9 ) applies the model to common mortuary processes. Part III (Chaps. 10 – 12 ) details modern interactions with the dead through a Poetics lens. Part IV (Chaps. 13 and 14 ) examines bodies and politics, with a focus on the use of the body as a political medium. Part V (Chaps. 15 and 16 ) examines the body as material culture, particularly through the lens of post-mortem agency. The Poetics lens, as introduced here, is expansive, and provides a lens to understand the relationship between the living and the dead.