November 26th, 2018

My mind works in jumbles and pieces. Oftentimes, at my most vulnerable, thoughts come to me in fragments. What is it about grief that causes this, effectively breaking the sentence? My writing reflects this too. Last year, my MFA grad school mentor, T Fleischmann, asked me to keep a grief journal. It was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. Both of my children, ages seven and four, have high-functioning autism.

We have good days, and we have bad days. The good days shine warm and bright in my memory like a ray from the summer sun. The bad days, the meltdowns, the self-injurious behaviors, the noncompliance, the opposition, break my spirit with their impossible weight.It was in those times that I was tasked to open up my journal and record whatever came into my mind. It was in those times that I could not find enough words. My brain made my hand hold the pen, put ink to paper, write the words that were incomplete, painful, fragmented, broken. And in those darkest journaling sessions, I found my writer’s voice. It shouted out loud from among the din of those emotionally charged jumbled-up fragments. It needed to be heard, heard loud and clear, without the restrictions of dialogue, “show, don’t tell,” carefully crafted scenes. It needed to push beyond the confines of traditional creative nonfiction.

Around that time, I was also reading Mourning Diary from Roland Barthes, Book of Mutter from Kate Zambreno, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and Lea Purpura’s On Looking. Within those texts sit fragments, pain, gorgeous, lyrical prose, tears, heartbreak, and depth. These writers wrote the pain and heartache. They didn’t reconstruct the scenes, recreate the dialogue. They spoke their truth in lyric and/or in fragments.

The lyric essay uses poetic phrasing and nontraditional formatting, such as fragments, broken sentences, unusual use of punctuation, outside-of-the box stylistic choices, large use of white space, etc. In our hardest moments, going through the worst grief and sadness that we encounter, oftentimes the writing comes out shattered and doesn't fall into a more traditionally-structured form. There may be no dialogue, pages of white space, broken sentences or fragments, or just a couple of sentences on a page. It sometimes doesn't follow any timeline or structure, much like grief. The grief and our level of grief reflects in the writing.

It is always my hope that in writing my grief in the only way my heart knows how, that I will reach a reader who needs to hear those same words, even though they may not be going through the same situation. Because in our most extreme pain and most abundant happiness, regardless of the circumstances, we are all emotionally universal.

DISCUSSION: What shape does your grief take for you when it materializes on the page? Are there single words? Fragments? Quiet moments and breaths taken through white space?

NIKKI SAMBITSKY earned her MFA in creative writing, specifically focusing on the lyric/fragment essay from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program. She holds a BA in journalism and is currently working on a collection essays, which center on mental illness, her family, and two autistic children. Her journalism work and creative nonfiction have appeared in publications such as The Helix, Gravel Magazine, West Hartford Magazine, and Longridge Review, where her essay was just nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband, two children, and way too many animals in a peaceful, rural, area of Connecticut.

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Ellen F.

11/28/2018 10:29:06 am

Very interesting - I've never thought about grief having a shape on the page, but this makes absolute sense. I would have to say that for me grief does end up taking more of a narrative shape, a story, but then again, I haven't experimented with nontraditional writing as much, so maybe that's why. Thank you for sharing this!

Nikki Sambitsky

11/28/2018 10:48:04 am

Hi Ellen,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. Yes, for some writers, grief absolutely presents itself through narrative. However, for others, the words sometimes don’t flow out in a linear way. Both are absolutely okay. There are no rules or right or wrong ways for how grief presents itself in the writing. I believe it comes out exactly in the way it’s meant to. If you are interested in writing and learning more about grief writing in non traditional forms, then please check out my course and register! I would love to see you there and answer any questions you may have. We will also practice some hybrid/nontraditional writing!

C. Flanagan Flynn link

12/5/2018 03:16:34 am

Hi Nikki,

I thought this line from your post aptly distilled writing during grief:

"In our hardest moments, going through the worst grief and sadness that we encounter, oftentimes the writing comes out shattered and doesn't fall into a more traditionally-structured form."

We may be tempted to discount our writing when it seems to lack a tradition structure, but the nature of grief is elusive and can appear fragmented and shattered on the page. The unconventional form often mirrors the bewildering feelings.

Thanks for sharing your insights.

12/5/2018 04:13:35 am

C Flanagan,

Thank you so much for your lovely response. What you also said is so very true. Oftentimes as writers, we indeed may feel tempted to discount the fragments on the page. But it’s those fragments that tell the sharpest bits of truth. I completely agree with you that the unconventional form mirrors the bewilderment of feeling. Unconventional form, though seemingly odd, is full of truth and beauty.

Learning to See