essayer: v., "to try"

I admit that I am nervous.

I had read a couple of these pieces before, mainly because I know Sally Johnson a little, and I know Emma Bolden a lot. My relationships with the two make it both easier and harder for me to respond analytically to their pieces. But tonight, and with Emma's in particular, I feel profoundly connected to both the author and the text.

Last spring, in my first year at a new job, I was asked to teach a "Nonfiction Writing" class, the syllabus for which had already been written, and which had been taught by someone else for a good amount of time. Complicating matters, the other teacher continued to teach a section of the course, and presumably, I was to teach a course similar, if not the same, to hers. Of course, even a syllabus is open to interpretation, yes? As the other teacher, really a bit of a journalist herself, taught the proper way to cite sources (I admit to not really knowing what a primary source is. Why would I? Why would I care? This label suits zero of my interests or pursuits in regard to research)--I went straight to Creative Nonfiction. I attempted to teach reportage and journalistic writing, though I flailed a bit, there. Then I taught personal narrative, and then I spent the bulk of the semester attempting to teach the Lyric Essay, that beautiful mystery, to twenty 17 year olds who really, really wanted to get into college. (Not the right time to attempt such exploration, admittedly. Their trust in me is something I will never, ever forget.) I used Philip Gerard and Carolyn Forche; I used Brenda Miller and the Braided Essay; I used Nick Flynn; I used everything I could find; I baked some really, really good Challah bread. The first thing I gave them though, was that Seneca Review piece. And dammit, those kids wrote lyric essays. Fine ones.

I love everything about the Seneca Review's description of the genre. It's almost difficult for me to write analytically about it, because I would want to quote every line, following each with "Yes, yes! Exactly!" as my only explanation. The Lyric Essay, in my understanding (which is total feeling, no thinking) is a poem that uses narrative--a narrative that is a poem. But then, there's not always narrative, in the linear sense, is there?

I have always suffered a kind of psychological, circularly neurotic need to hide when poetry is concerned. When I write poetry, actually, when I write anything, I need to be behind a closed door--always surprised by those who can write in cafes, or on trains, or in any kind of capacity during which they might be discovered at the act. When choosing an office space, while I love the aesthetic of a light and beautiful room, what I actually require is a closet. A room with walls so close that I can spider out my limbs and touch them with my joints still bent. But when I READ poetry, when I hear it, I enter a different space, and though I meditate a good deal, still, nothing else comes close to it. It's an immediate change in my physiology. I am in deep focus, and also underwater. It's difficult to explain. My poetry students have described it to me, from the outside, what it's like when they are reading to me--my eyes go downcast. I lean forward. I stop blinking, and hold the hair away from my ears on both sides. I only know that the same is not true when I read or listen to fiction. I like novels, don't get me wrong--they give me something, too. But I'll skim if there's something exciting about to happen. I'll skip down. With poems, I am immersed. I read each line over and over again because I don't ever want to arrive at the finish. Until I do.

Lyric essay gives me both. With this form, I dissolve into my poem-self, and yet I am also finding story, finding statement, hearing truth. Non-poetic prose (?) is not good enough. Saying something in the Lyric, I believe, is saying it better. It's saying it feeling and hearing, not just seeing, smelling, and touching.

My favorites, of the pieces we've read for this first assignment, are the Taylor and Bolden pieces. In all of the essays, I see a connection to something larger, arrived at by way of image, collage, juxtaposition, and narrative. In the Sherman Alexi piece, what I love most is the title, mainly because it gives you that idea, that bigger thing, and then uses narrative to go around it, past it, by it, through it. This one, to me, is kind of like a prism piece. Hold it up to light, and see a lot of shatter, a world of refraction. But they all do this, to some degree. Bolden's piece is also personal, and collage, and wondering--it's work toward understanding, and work toward that final, beautiful, raw and genuine last paragraph.

What I love about Emma's piece is connected, I think, to the fact that I also know her poetry very well. The voices are vastly different. Emma's poetic voice is perhaps more detached, more external, more prism. Here, in this piece, I hear her speaking voice. The one that is close, self-conscious, funny, and almost reliant on comedy/tragedy to arrive at the end. I think that last paragraph is dependent on her voice. It's dependent upon ice, her mother's spoken italics, her cats, and the penis/torch/vibrator. It's how she builds up everything that she needs within herself and within her reader for that last paragraph.   In regard to narrative, Emma is a master of timing, here, and pace. She moves through sections, collage pieces, and camera angles so deftly that her reader (I should say "I") wouldn't dream of skimming. She/I wants to eat every letter of the story. She/I takes her time. I also love that much of the research here is Wikipedia. Emma's pop-culture references couple with her metaphors like the sound of a sword cutting air. Turning from the humor of baseball references to the truth and horror of a "forced out," is what Emma does best here. That, and the fact that (returning to the bigger idea) this is an essay about the female body, about the way that other people make our choices for us, and about the way that women are pressed into understanding the workings of their bodies as a kind of drowning. As something from which we might be relieved to stop breathing.

I liked the Taylor piece in the same way, but also not the same way. For me, it also about a bigger idea, but here, the narrative takes center stage. I feel that we're getting more story here than image, though how incredible to begin with something that could only turn up in a poem--a father coating his daughter's hands in honey and watching the bear eat them. That is so--have you read The Colonel? By Carolyn Forche? That father is the ears on the table, so to speak. Of course, that poem is sometimes considered essay, too. :) Anyway, the stories here speak to larger ideas. They speak to nature and the egotistical nature of human beings. In the section about the bear whose blood trail wanders off, I couldn't help but champion the animal, hoping that for everyone's sake, the bear would never be found. Same in the end-- the respect and fear in coming so close. The need to stay hidden, small, silent. No gun. Naturally captive.

I think what I'm trying to find here is a way to discuss the narrative in lyric essay, not because it always exists, but because it exists here, in these cases. In the Forche poem, the narrative is the main focus. The poetry is hidden in the block of text. It's like screaming in a soundproof vault; it's quiet horror. That's the ability of lyric narrative, I think. To get beyond the story, actually. To force a stifled scream. The feeling that by way of explanation (narrative) cannot be explained, and that can only be said in the exact way that it is. Why can't these things or truths be said another way? I don't know. There, in there somewhere, is the art of human intuition, and the beautiful, beautiful mystery.