I needed somewhere to put my grief. Not to hide it away and forget, but to articulate it, record it, preserve this “preciously awful” time. It was the grief before mourning, the grief before the death had occurred. Anticipatory. A thing in itself.
Oubliette, a book centred on the vicarious gardener, Ericca Godfrey—my mum. The experience of anticipatory grief is woven with scraps of conversations and memories that were shared over several years between us: two people who loved one another wonderfully and irreplaceably. Published by Nevermore Press, autumn 2023.
Reviewed by Madeline Bogoch for The Uniter.
“The stuttering of fragments from Top Gun to Tracy Emin to Cicero renders a moving present-tense of grief in this text. Godfrey’s keen ear and vivid memory cast shadows that are deftly traced to form an outline of what has been cleft from the writer.” Rebecca La Marre, editor Apophony Press.