Fragments of a Note Written then Destroyed

Abstract

Fragments of a Note Written then Destroyed is a meditation upon grief, memory, and transience. The titular ‘note’ refers to a lengthy journal entry in which the poet experienced an outpouring of emotion regarding the death of her beloved grandmother (mom’s mom) two years prior. The January 2025 death of the poet’s grandfather (mom’s dad) and the realization that, in the natural order of things, there was no longer anyone standing between death and her mother triggered an extreme and prolonged state of despair. This state culminated in a nearly four-page piece of writing which the poet refers to as “the closest thing I’ve ever written to a suicide note.” The poet tore the note to pieces then set them aside. The poet kept these pieces because, in spite of the darkness they held, they were the fruit of a labor-intensive writing session that the poet was not willing to let go to waste. The fragments of this note appear alongside ekphrastic poems which are centered upon very old photographs from the childhood of the poet’s grandmother. Taken in Lansing, Michigan from 1947 to 1957, these photographs came into the poet’s possession after her grandmother’s death in December 2022. These photos are themselves fragments—representations of moments past that the poet will never be able to ask her grandmother about. In collecting and responding to these fragments, the poet struggles to find balance between imagination and oblivion