Full Description
Society doesn't always make it easy to tell stories about loss. Grief can make us feel that we have crossed over to another side, where people can't reach us and we can't reach others. We're encouraged to move quickly through the often-misunderstood "stages of grief"; we fear that we are burdening others with our pain. But pain can feel more manageable when we find ways to describe it—and writing about grief can help us connect with others who have felt pain of their own.
Letting Grief Speak is a creative writing craft book on the art of telling our hardest stories. Based on a class called Grief Writing Sundays that Diane Zinna has led for several years, it provides ninety writing prompts with accompanying craft techniques to help people find language for their grief. By turns gentle, unexpected, rebellious, and wonderfully strange, these prompts open portals: entryways into spaces where difficult emotions can become meaningful narratives. Warm, sensitive, and honest, Letting Grief Speak is a memoir of the craft, interwoven with stories from the author's own life. It also includes pieces from acclaimed writers and more than forty of her Grief Writing students, inviting readers to find their own ways to tell vulnerable stories. A tool for writers and a companion for grievers, this book meets writers of all levels where they are, no matter what kind of grief they hold.
Contents
Contents
The Past
Grief Writing Sundays
Portals
1. A Recipe
2. Important Safety Instructions
3. The Proximity of Objects
4. The Things We Carry
5. Kintsugi and Gold
6. Shortcuts and Pauses
7. Safe Spaces
8. The Wind Telephone
9. Self-Gaslighting
10. Grief World Tour!
11. Noticing Yourself as a Child
12. The Parts of Grief We Don't Want to Lose
13. On Animals
14. Mother's Day
15. A Fairy Tale
16. Storyboarding
17. Gift from the Sea
18. Online Dating Profiles
19. Father's Day
20. Choose Your Own Adventure
21. The Telescope
22. Three Distances
23. Roses
24. Grief in the Body
25. The Guest House
26. Braids (Danger, Buffered, Nature)
27. Change Can Be Soft
28. Montage
29. Dialogue Tags and Cues
30. Intertwining Voices
31. Old Love Letters
32. Music
33. Objects Invisible/Visible
34. Scent and Memory
35. The Deepest Pocket
36. A Diagram of the Body
37. Yoga
38. The Magic Show
39. The Enchanted Garden
40. From the Wings
41. Orpheus and Eurydice
42. White Space Scenes
43. Fight and Flight
44. Desiderata
45. Cookbooks and Takeout
46. On Illness
47. On Generational Grief
48. Poetry in Translation
49. On Sound
50. The Grief Dictionary
51. Etymology
52. A Letter Home
53. Magnified Tears
54. Other People's Advice
55. Presence
56. Distractions
57. A Makeup Tutorial
58. A Workout Video
59. Mansion Floorplan
60. The Crossword Puzzle
61. The Wrong Coat
62. The Mixtape
63. Grief Old and Young
64. The Hitchhiker
65. Release to the Wild
66. What We Don't Say
67. Ekphrasis
68. Making Art in the Face of F*ck
69. Thoughts and Prayers
70. A Cento
71. Filters
72. Islands of Personality
73. A Classified Ad
74. Aunt Pittie Pat's Attic
75. Procession
76. Trip Advisor
77. Día de los Muertos
78. Robot Art
79. Mr. Green Jeans
80. A Message in the Stones
81. Grieving the Living
82. What Stage of Grief Is It?
83. The Four Tasks of Mourning
84. The Letter e Structure
85. Your Loved One's Bucket List
86. A House Speaks
87. Writing About Sex
88. A Visitation
89. If My Grief
90. Maryam's Exercise
The Present
A List of All Our Portals
Grief Resources
Appendix: Translations from Portal 48, Poetry in Translation
Credits
Contributors
Acknowledgments
About the Author
