Hairography: a memoir lesson

Years ago, I wrote a book in the voice of a river—Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River—and felt it to be my truest book—my least defended, my most vulnerable.  I was speaking in the voice of another, and so I was speaking with undiluted honesty about how I lived lonesomeness, forsakenness, slow faith, trust, and love.

Ever since Flow, I have encouraged my students to write in the voice of another so that they might better see themselves.  Autobiographies of the inanimate have ensued.  Autobiographies of the comb, the toothbrush, the flashlight.  Autobiographies of the ID card, the pink sweater, the dandelion-tattooed iPhone case, the glass horse, the pipe, the yellow post-it (one year old).  While in Miami with the two dozen YoungArts writers, we talked hairography—the pieces I'd asked them to write in the voice of their hair.  We reviewed questions of gender, tense, knowledge, research.  We talked, specifically, about empathy—about how, forced to see one's own self through the eyes of a constant, silent witness, we grow.  Our language changes.  Our understanding steeps.

And so:  Choose an object or a thing that is always nearby.  Imagine yourself into its perspective.  See what it teaches you. 

Here, for example, is my own hairography.  It is speaking to the twenty-four.  It is speaking to you.

Hairography

 

Language like fumes.  Language particulate and strange—the caper of a thought, cleaved.  Here are some words:  Efflorescence.  Interjacent.  Lagniappe.  Rune.  Here is the vast task of my existence:  to listen.  I am electrostatic frizz, I am frump, I am inconvenient.  I am fallen, twisted, clawed, resisted, shamed.  There are one hundred thousand of me.  But in the spaces in between, I breathe.

         What I’ve learned (we):

         Language is larger than words.  Language is song and pace, hurry and pause; take it one shivering um at a time.  Language wants to participate and it is afraid and it waits for a sign.  Language bends, and any sentence studied might be a poem.  Make the poem.  Defy the easy tease of ordinary-ness.  Live language large.  Look at me hanging here, desperate here, curling.  Appease me.

         You will have noticed some things:  In the making of the new there will be consequences.  In the struggle to know there will be pain.  In the urge to emerge there will be casual disregard.  In the arsenal of punctuation, on the snowbanked page, in the sudden silence, answers will be found.  Against chemistry, machines, mongers, fads, grandiose insensitivities, and regrettable excess wage war.  

         Corrugated, coruscated, unfit:  Your eyes, through the years, have accused me.  Brittle, broken, lied to, lied for, left to wind and winter, smoke and cure, delusion, bedsheets:  I yet remain.  (We.)  I grow old.  I wait.

         Language like fumes—did you hear me?  Language particulate and strange.  If my gift is how I listen, your gift must be how you talk into the page.  How you tunnel through—cuticle to follicle to brain blood heart.  How you—somehow—remain.

         What did you say?

For more thoughts on memoir making and prompt exercises, please visit my dedicated Handling the Truth page.

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be spontaneous

In Miami, during the National YoungArts Foundation program week, teens selected for their talent in nine different disciplines had the opportunity to share their work on major stages.  The work itself was extraordinary, of course.  But what most deeply touched me was the spontaneous nature of the anticipatory crowds. 

Here we are, ahead of the readings by the young writers.  The musicians had carried their instruments with them, as they always did, and had broken out into some song.  The dancers, hearing the strands of melody, took the music upon themselves—half impulse, half something they might have done before. 

I want to live like that.

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Why (some) Teens Don't Read Young Adult Literature

In Miami, as a master writing teacher for the National Young Arts Foundation program, I had the opportunity to spend time with extraordinary young writers—but those of you who read this blog know that.  I had asked these very special teens, before we'd met, to tell me about the books that had changed their idea of story, on the one hand, and of language, on the other. When it became clear that few of these teens are spending time with books written for them, I asked more questions and listened intently.

"Why (some) Teens Don't Read Young Adult Literature," my essay now up on The Huffington Post, captures the essence of these conversations.  It also showcases a pretty spectacular and diverse reading list—one that sent me out to stores to buy the (few) books I was missing.

You can read the essay here.

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Small Damages a top five read of the year, with thanks again to A. A. Omer

I spent part of this day in the cold, white weather, by my mother's grave.  I spent part of it watching the news, wondering about the state this country is in.  I spent part of it reading the still incoming essays by the two dozen YoungArts writers I'll meet in Miami in just a few days and part of it receding into that safe hollow where story still lives within me, if I listen hard, if I wait.

I came to this computer just now to see what a handful of these new Florence paragraphs look like on this big screen, because I will never believe in the sentences I make until I see them and remake them and endlessly reshape them until they are set, a tableau vivant.  When I arrived, this bit of thrilling something was right here, waiting for me:

A.A. Omer, who just hours ago named Small Damages number one within the Best Writing of 2012 category, has today named this book of mine to her top five reads of the year.  Here, on this list, it joins Gone Girl, Drowning Instinct, Pandemonium, and Blood Red Road.

I have no idea how I got this lucky, but I hope you don't mind if I directly quote:

2) Small Damages by Beth Kephart
Every paragraph, sentence and word was important and a story that could’ve been dull was made captivating. Werewolves, vampires, dystopian worlds are fun but sometimes it’s everyday life and everyday problems that’s the most interesting.

A.A. Omer, I need to throw you a party.  A very happy new year to you!

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Looking ahead to YoungArts in Miami, welcoming my students

This year the National YoungArts Foundation received some 10,000 applications for its extraordinary program celebrating emerging artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts fields.  The teen finalists—152 of them—are now just a few weeks away from participating in YoungArts Week in Miami, a program designed to celebrate their talents, to extend their reach, and to engage them in conversation and exercises that will hopefully shape their way of seeing and doing for years to come.

As the Master Teacher for the 24 young writers who were selected for the program (writing being just one of nine celebrated disciplines), I am blessed.  I'll be teaching in the city's botanical gardens.  I'll be asking the students to come prepared with a brief autobiography of their hair, a declaration about the books that have changed their perception of both story and language, and a photograph of themselves that firmly divides a Before from an After.  We'll explore the garden in search of telling details, weatherscapes, and invisible, essential forces.  We will write bird song and water rush.  We will assimilate and empathize.

I am eager to meet the young writers. I am eager to learn from the program's other master teachers and presenters—Marisa Tomei, Bobby McFerrin, Bill T. Jones, Debbie Allen, Joshua Bell, and Adrian Grenier, among others.  I am eager to spend some time in Miami.

But first things first.  Today I officially welcome my students, who will be arriving from San Francisco, Birmingham, Holladay, Boonton, and all manner of places in between.

Congratulations, and welcome:

Alexa Derman

Julia Hogan

Flannery James

Libbie Katsev

Lois Carlisle

Allison Cooke

Stefania Gomez

Peter Laberge

Amy Mattox

Kathleen Radigan

Laura Rashley

Lila Thulin

Victoria White

Catherine Wong

Kathleen Cole

Amanda Crist

Emily Hittner-Cunningham

Anne Hucks

Natalie Landers

Annyston Pennington

Anne Malin Ringwalt

Lizza Rodriguez

Frances Saux

Ashley Zhou

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