GRIEF
WRITING – J.R.Poulter
What is Grief Writing and Why it is useful:
Grief writing is a tool, one tool among
many to use -
·
as a coping mechanism,
·
as a survival mechanism,
·
as a release
·
as a celebration of a life lost
or a trauma survived.
It is a means of coming to terms with
traumatic events – death, dying as with the eating, gradual death of cancer,
loss, suicide, disappearance as when a loved one goes missing, injury and
disablement.
The saying ‘a problem shared is a problem
halved’ applies in all instances involving grief and trauma. Sharing with someone you know and trust
is important. If no access to such a person or to counseling is available, grief
writing will help you exteriorise, unburden, cope.
A bit about my own background and how
writing has helped me:
My relationship as a child and young person
with my mother was a role reversal. My mother suffered deep-seated depression
caused by very severe, sustained sibling abuse, throughout her very traumatic
childhood. At certain times of year, depression took over. I was confidante and
comforter. This started when I was about 4 years old. Writing quickly became my
survival tool. Who are you going to confide in when it is your mother who is
the one heaping on the emotional and psychological burdens? I confided in
prayers and in my writing.
“Mending Lucille”, my book that won the
Crichton in 2009, grew partially out of my experiences with my own family. My
mother never left physically, but from an emotional standpoint, from a
mothering standpoint, she was never able to be there for me. My father tried
but he had suffered too, a nervous breakdown after World War II that was
directly related to his war time experiences as a bomber pilot and
calculatingly self-obsessed parents who sent him to boarding school almost from
the start of primary.
My first writings were plays that I put on
with the neighbourhood children. Friends an relatives were the audience. Later
came poetry, later still children’s books and books for education and, more
recently, short stories. I am teaching myself script writing.
How to use Grief Writing:
1.
Journaling –
Keys to get started -
·
Collage Key - Letting it go, letting it flow – cut words that relate to you, to your situation out of a magazine
or newspaper. Take a large sheet of paper – butcher’s paper or newspaper
off-cut and colour large blobs of colour/or paint/ or paste scraps of coloured
paper. Paste the cut out words on the colour that matches for you. This is
important - let your feelings dictate here, not your knowledge of the word,
definitions of the word or anything else. For example – tears can be ‘red’ or
‘gray’ or ‘blue’ or ‘white’ or whatever colour speaks to you NOW as relating to
that word.
·
Stream of Consciousness - With those words as stimuli, put pen to paper/fingers to keyboard
with stream of consciousness writing.
This means putting pen to paper and just writing - all your feelings, thoughts, fears, doubts, memories. Do
not worry about punctuation, spelling or grammar - just write. If writing is
too daunting straight off, then speak your feelings into a recorder then
transcribe.
Later, can be
minutes to months later – go back, read it, punctuate, edit grammar. Then read
it out loud or have someone close to you read it. This step helps place the
anguish beyond you, outside of you, helps you to see where you are in the
context of what you are experiencing with more clarity. It gives perspective, enables
grater objectivity. It helps you see how far your have moved from hurt to
healing. It also acts as a
reference point for further writing.
·
Memories & Memorabilia - Collect together memorabilia of your life as it was impacted by
the person and / or event that is the focal point of your grief. Write down
words that strongly connect you to the person/event. Write down words that
describe those words.
Collect together
memorabilia of anything ‘good’ / life affirming, anything that helped sustain
you through the grieving process. Write down the words, descriptions of any
images, that most strongly connect you to the person or event that is the
source of your grief.
2.
Affirmation –
Redo the stream of consciousness step with
memorabilia around you and fresh in mind, then shape the resulting writing into
a prose piece or poem. Turn it into a Poster Poem by illustrating it with
photographs, craft work, collage or your own drawings.
Journal a piece that encapsulates where you
are now and what lies ahead that you hope for. Thank those who have helped you
survival thus far.
Keep all your poems or prose pieces
together and periodically review them. This is your journey in writing.
3.
Forgiveness
Forgive others their part objective or
subjective; forgive yourself your part objective or subjective. Releasing
yourself and others enables you to move on with your life, to move to the next
stage of writing. This in NO WAY negates what has happened to cause your grief
in the first place. This in NO way negates the abuser’s culpability. This step will enable you to more
effectively, one day, reach out and help others.
4.
The Craft of Writing
Think of the sound words make and the
images they evoke – words like ‘cut’, ‘hack’ are not gentle in sound or
meaning. Words like ‘snow’ and ‘grass’ have a flow to them that suggests
covering.
Try using poetic devices like onomatopoeia [sound echoing sense, e.g.,
feathery soft, the eider down settled] and simile
[this is like that, e.g., fleece white as snow], metaphor [saying this is that, e.g., the gold-haired sun] or transferred epithet [giving human
characteristics to inanimate
objects or nonhuman life forms e.g., the door stubbornly stuck fast] in
your writing to add impact.
Use haiku
– the traditional three-line Japanese verse form of 5 syllables, 7
syllables, 5 syllables - to tighten and focus your expression. Not one word is
wasted in haiku.
Read what you have written out loud. Your
ear will sense where the flow of your writing needs to be smoothed further or
perhaps to be interrupted, punctuated to create shorter sentences for added
dramatic effect.
Collect your writings together into a
folder and desktop them into a
keepsake booklet. Microsoft
Publisher, Open Office drawing; Star Office Presentation; or Swift Printfolio or PageMaker are all options if you have a computer.
Illustrate your writings with memorabilia, photographs, sketches, snippets from magazines and newspapers, cards and so
on.
Two examples from my own writing – my
eldest son lost three friends within 18 months in horror road crashes.
Field Surgeon Remembering, [in Small Packages]
From his garden, he hears young men prowl
in their cars,
Arms captured in a circling crush,
Hears their music blasting,
Down the
stethoscope the beat is strong.
They U with screaming rubber.
He begins again, the third time tonight,
the needle circling.
The metal cut deep in. The wound is sutured
over staying the scar.
He wonders, from his garden, if the tank
tracks are
Still there, snailing among the rosy flesh.
He remembers the bodies and how he stitched
Deliberate tank tracks across the skin,
The needle circling, the thread drawing
torn flesh together.
He thinks, “there is no perfect rose.”
Slaughter
House Road by J.R.McRae [in Speed Poets]
Ten miles down
Slaughterhouse Road,
A cemetery -
Three crosses with their plastic flowers
Here
On the home run.
John,
The steering wheel
Crushing his sternum to spine,
Marie,
With glass shards
Through her jugular,
And little Daisy,
Thrown
Three meters into the tall grass,
Dying for 24 hours before
Joe,
On his way home,
Saw the wreck
And called 000 too late.
Joe's wife, Amelia,
Put the crosses there
For pity's sake.
Joe put the flowers
From the refectory
At the Slaughterhouse.
My websites:
LINKS:
Some examples – Journal writing
Some web examples of Grief Writing/blogging
Further Reading:
·
Karen O. Johnson, Griefabet – a book of survival and coping strategies – wise,
‘wonder’ full, whimsical and life affirming - small tactics to keep you going.
·
Madelaine Tasky Sharples, Leaving
the Hall Light On - a family’s
journey back after the suicide of
a severely bipolar son/brother
·
Jessica Bell, Twisted Velvet Chains - a chronicling of a daughter’s
experience growing up with a suicidal, bipolar mother.
·
Shirley Pitcher, Conversations with Teddy – first in a
series of memoirs about surviving an abusive childhood.
·
John Knight, “Letters from the Asylum” – poems from a
poet who fought bipolar all his life.
·
Les Murray, Killing the Black Dog – the poet’s
account of struggling with depression lifelong and poems specially selected by
the poet.
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