Syllabus & Assignment #1!

 

Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown: The Lyric Essay

Sarah Messer

In this workshop you will learn how to incorporate some of the many elements that together form a lyric essay – a hybrid mix of poetry, essay, memoir, etc. During this exciting four-week course you will explore ways to look at your own writing style through the challenging filter of these combined elements and learn how to reshape them into a uniquely structured creative piece.

Course Description:

This course will be run as a workshop. The main focus will be your own work; we will also explore, through assigned readings, the various forms/content/style that the Lyric Essay can take.

In addition this course will also examine nontraditional narrative strategies inherent in all good creative nonfiction writing and explore the ever-present question of how to tell the truth. Students will be asked to write a new lyric essay a week and to respond (via journal entry and discussion board) to the readings and to workshop submissions.You will also receive individual comments and line edits from Sarah via email. Anyone else who wants to comment in this way is also welcome(I use track-changes) -- but also please post your impressions and suggestions in the comments section also for all to see. In this way it can be more like a workshop. Seeing others responses is always helpful!

Required Texts:

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Claudia Rankine

Bluets, Maggie Nelson

Suggested Texts:

Fakes, (anthology) ed. by David Shield and Matthew Volmer

The Lost Origin of the Essay (anthology) John D’Agata

The Next American Essay, (anthology) John D’Agata

Class Schedule: (we’ll try this out and see how it goes)

Sunday: Sarah posts the week’s reading assignment.

Weds by Midnight: Please respond on the blog any questions, comments or thoughts about the reading assignment. Please also respond via comments to your classmates essays. Obviously we can’t respond the first week!

Thursday: Sarah responds to your comments. Sends track changes via email to your workshop pieces.

Friday by Midnight: New Lyric Essay Due to the class. Please post as a blog post so we can comment!

I.               Week One: Lyric Essay and the Narrative. Please introduce yourself on the blog to everyone.  Please read Binary by Sally J. Johnson(some links), Captivity by Sherman Alexi (attached to email), About the Human Hymen Disambiguation, by Emma Bolden(some links) and Bear Stories by Keith Taylor. How are these essays using narrative? How are they about something larger. How, in your opinion, is the form working to support the content? For this week you can imitate one of these essays (in form) if you like for your workshop piece, or try something new!

II.             Week Two: Working Beyond the Personal Narrative – research, mosaic, the braided essay. Reading TBA. Again, feel free to imitate the form or create your own!

III.           Week Three: Using Borrowed Forms – like the contributor’s note, the recipe, the catalogue, the list, the progress report, the footnote, etc. Also using collage and found language. Uses of white space and art/image in your work. Reading TBA.

IV.           Week Four: The Book-Length Lyric Essay. Please read Maggie Nelson’s Bluets and Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.