Morgan Sanford, Utah State University
A nonfiction lyric essay, “The Quiet Breaking Us Down” is an exploration of both the form and the act of letter writing. When I discovered my great-uncle Bruce’s correspondence from WWII, I began to think critically about letters as a vehicle for communication and connection. This led me to consider their relevance across time and space. Letters are provocative because they are born of the moment, and yet timeless. Letters also provide an intimate space in which reader and writer can meet and interact; however, both engage with the text in a separate moment of time and space, so reading and writing a letter often creates gaps, voids, and absences as well as bridges. This essay explores these ideas through the structural metaphor of the letter itself. Although Bruce wrote his letters over 70 years ago, the questions he raises about identity, love, and relationships resonate with me because he wrote at the same age as I read. The cross-generational relationship that I developed with my great-uncle as a result of his letter writing is meaningful to me, and my essay seeks to consider the way that two individuals can come to understand one another—and themselves—across space and time. To craft “The Quiet Breaking Us Down,” I read and responded to a few of Bruce’s letters, applying my growing understanding of the epistolary form to create a vehicle for musing, self-expression, and relationship development.