Feeling the Lyric Essay

& isn't it always about feelings?

The beginnings of this post has been in my drafts folder for weeks. It was supposed to be about lyric essays. I was supposed to do some research and reading about the craft of writing lyric essays to supplement my thoughts. And I did actually read some craft pieces but almost all left me feeling ho-hum and without insight or inspiration. The best definition of lyric essay, I think, is in this piece in Seneca Review that says in part,

These "poetic essays" or "essayistic poems" give primacy to artfulness over the conveying of information. They forsake narrative line, discursive logic, and the art of persuasion in favor of idiosyncratic meditation.

The lyric essay partakes of the poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language. It partakes of the essay in its weight, in its overt desire to engage with facts, melding its allegiance to the actual with its passion for imaginative form.

To paraphrase Patti Smith, I’m not a technical or critical reader. I’m a reader who wants to feel, to engage with beautiful language, to have a colorful visual story unfurl in my head. Mindfulness and thoughtfulness are elements that draw me to the lyric essay. In my mind, a successful lyric essay has an aura, a mood, its own climate. That is what I want to read and share. I’m posting a few links to pieces that I’ve read that made me feel, made me go “WoW!”, made me think, I want to write like that!

*

Epistolary Weaved with Birds and Grass After Long Hospital Stay by Sean Thomas Dougherty in Brevity.

In this essay, Sean Thomas writes a letter to his wife who is critically ill. It’s so hard to write about illness and/or death in a way that hasn’t been done already. This essay blew me away with its mindful and poetic approach. It is so effective in drawing out empathy from the reader. I could quote so many beautiful passages but this one made me think, How wonderful to have someone write this way about you.

When you speak, I hear the names of tall grass swaying in the wind, Little Bluestem blessing the Prairie plains, the purple hue of switchgrass, golden Indian grass: Sorghastrum nutans. Marram grass in the sand where we used to nap as our children gathered stones, bouquets of primrose, and wild rye. You are the baker’s granddaughter.

Fish Tales by Karen Kao in The Kenyon Review.

In “Fish Tales,” Karen writes about growing up female and Chinese in California, about childhood summers and scars, about her mother and grandmother, about men and their intentions, all written in imagery you can drown in. Throughout is a thread about fish. You’ll have to read it to enjoy that tantalizing hint! It’s an immersive and arresting read that will stay on your mind for a long time.

I prefer the language of my mother and her mother when they are in the motherland. Their cheeks grow plump and pink as if they were girls again on Kowloon Bay, shopping for dreams. One bag holds a husband, his face hidden among folds of silvery tissue paper. Another bag bears two sons, each with a gold ribbon around his neck like a prize carp. There is never a third bag. In the motherland, my mother and her mother say to each other, This is enough.

and

I dive into a leaf-strewn swimming pool on a hot LA night. Finally, the itching ends. I am a clown fish darting through the reef. I am a needlefish too quick to catch. On the ocean bottom I lurk like an anglerfish, mouth open, lure blinking.

When I surface, hives emerge. They’re as pale and pink as babies, soft and squishy too. Now I can’t go swimming either.

Up Covigne by Camille U. Adams in The Forge

Camille is a fierce writer of lyric essay who has become a must-read for me. Her stories demand your attention, are immediate and enthralling. You can not turn your eyes away. Nor do you want to.

I band my shoulders tight. The vertebrae ache from giving them no respite to be supple flesh. My spine is a rod the lasering sun cannot melt. Not yet. Neck in a stay-strong-be-alert brace. My eyes dart left to right as ahead I face the stripped car parts cave. This car parts cave of wrought iron stalactite teeth. This car parts cave backed by a river and trees. This car parts cave into which more than one girl has been dragged and never again seen. Unfound by police. I can feel concealed men’s loud stares spear out from its depth. And cannot breathe.

Rearview by Erin Hogarth in JMWW

A prime example of lyric essay as meditation and also of telling a story “slant”. I love this piece so much!

Thank you, father, for telling me too much. Behind the study door, mother’s heels in the hall tapped a warning. Later men who traveled heavy leaned the weight they carried on your scale. Rejoice, for you were a soft place for them to fall. Be nice, mother said, each time you left the house.

And, lastly, a favorite flash lyric essay that I’ve read many times by Jamie Etheridge, Following Magellan in Anti-Heroin Chic. In one long sentence, Jamie tells a story of love within dysfunction. It’s so effective!

…there just ahead was a lighthouse—that famous Gulf Coast, Biloxi lighthouse—and it stood sentry in the middle of the road standing its ground through hurricanes and depressions and civil war and serving as a beacon guiding us home-not-home but somewhere familiar, a place where people knew our real name…

Poetry, as a genre, was my first love and my first written word. I suppose that’s why I’m so drawn to lyric essay. I’m always on the look out for these gems of the prose world but they must have a truly poetic component to satisfy my itch, like the ones above.

*

Image via National Gallery of Art open access: Magasin, Avenue des Gobelins, 1925 by Eugène Atget.