HOW THE WOR(L)D WAS MADE (Part 1)

Tired of my punny titles yet? It's OK to say yes. 

One of commonalities I'm noticing about the lyrical essays we're reading is that many authors choose to delve into word histories and associations. I've long been a fan of etymology (and always have to make sure that N doesn't sneak its way into that word like a nemotode). I love that fact that the lyric essay gives us a sandbox, a playground for language that goes beyond language poetry. I found a note I scribbled on "Seven Fathoms Down": the lyric essay is an etymologist's dream. Perhaps these histories and associations give us the energy to make our leaps.

I've found also that lyric essays are a great place to explore lists ("Take a Large Stockpot" has that scribbled in the margin of almost every paragraph) and statistics (The first half of the second section/paragraph of "Joyas Volardores" is all stats - and then a long, lovely, image-inducing list).

So to me, the Lyric Essay is shaping up to be that not-quite-crazy aunt who seems to know about EVERYTHING when you're a little kid, but who just really knew a lot about a few things, but like a magician, used sleight of tongue to redirect your attention to the things of which she could speak. (I long ago crowned myself Queen of Bad Analogies, and recognize that this description doesn't fit all lyric essays - perhaps just the ones that I enjoy the most.)

Joyas Volardores

I loved the beginning of this piece. The repetition of hummmmmmmingbird and hummingbird heart like the beating of its wings (or heart). The wonder at what this tiny-hearted "flying jewel" could do. Thousands of flowers a day! Five hundred miles without so much a pit stop! 

But the next two sections really dragged the momentum down for me (and not in a seemingly deliberate, effective way). I feel like the author tried way too hard to fill space. There was much to be happy about in both of the sections, but I feel that some judicious pruning may have made those sections resonate in better alignment with the first two.

Numbers are woven / braided so tightly into this piece. I thought the second-to-last section did a nice job of wrapping up with "scientific" side of the essay, and ending on a philosophical note we all churn inside sets us up nicely for the last section, with its introspective, spiritual bent.

child's apple breath

Can't we all imagine that?



Take a Large Stockpot

I loved this essay. But I love soup. To me, this essay was a lovely example of how we can embrace and love the list. What is a recipe but a list? Ingredients, directions, maybe some marginalia and annotations (as the author so delightfully details — "Cook until the color of a brown paper bag"). In the first two sections, I counted among my scribbles 10 notations of list, 1 of fragment, and 2 of comfort. 

The last section I felt appealed to the five senses and gave us a recipe that we could, yes as Rebecca noted, reproduce. What I found interesting in her treatment of the recipe is that as I arrive at It is a recipe that, like any other, comes to me at the tag end of the history, I believe my soup is done (as I had been making it in my mind along with the speaker). I take in the smells, the tastes, the appreciation for a lost homeland. But then pomegranate. I'm sorry, what? I must have missed a step. I go back, read over the recipe. Onion, butter, water, salt, turmeric (a word that is as difficult for me to say as it is to imagine how to use in a recipe), sugar, flour, a stone or two if you wish, and eggs. Return to center. Keep reading. Ahhhh. Yes. There it is — the family secret, bottled.




I Couldn't Stop Watching

I felt in a way like each one of these was its own lyrical essay. I felt as if these belonged in a hand-bound book, perhaps letterset with hand-inked illustrations. I found my attention lacking in order to give this work its due, which I was happy to mete out from the minutes of my life, but I felt as if I needed to ration them, to wait until the beggar rang the bell after I've had a long nap or a long fete. I wanted to sup with these words (and clearly must wear a whalebone corset and layers and layers of crinoline while doing so). I wanted to stretch out on an old quilt under the blood moon, or blue moon, or harvest moon, read each page, tear them ever so gently from their hand-sewn binding, bury my face in them, feed each one to the dying fire, and weep into the ashes until my tears had damped any hope of orange.


Well, I'm not sure where that came from, but there you go.  ^^Why I love being in the company of other writers.