(I should add, lest you think I totally frittered away those four years, that I averaged a good eight hours a day playing cards. “In a direct and affecting manner.” Well, only if you substitute “obtuse” for “direct”, “affected” for “affecting” and “mannered” for “manner,” would this definition describe the lyricism that served me most of my academic career, especially in college, where I seldom attended classes or read assignments. The dictionary defines lyric literature as writing that “suggests music in its sound patterns and expresses FEELING, especially a deep personal emotion in a direct and affecting manner.” Hmm.
Now I have a suspicion that when my teachers credited me with "lyrical" prose, they were confusing bombast with heart.
You can almost hear Sappho saying she’s feeling a bit “verklempt,” can’t you? While the other is written, not to justify the ways of the gods to man, so much as to gossip, complain, sigh, share. But one poem takes the “high road,” making even private moments larger than life, mythic in stature. See the difference in scale here? In specificity? Both these poems are, well, “poetic.” Their language is musical and rhythmic. ► “Tonight,” Sappho confides, “I’ve watched/the moon and then/the Pleiades/go down./The night is now/half-gone youth/slips away I am/in bed alone.” ( Sappho, frag. ► “Sing, Goddess,” Homer begins, “the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians.” ( Iliad, book I) You have only to compare the opening of the Iliad, Homer’s mega narrative, with one of Sappho’s haiku-like fragments to see what a stunning departure this was: She was a writer who focused on moments of intense personal feeling, on individual subjective experience instead of epic events and stories. Sappho was among the earliest lyric poets. But these poems were more than just musical. "Lyrical language?" What is that, anyway? The word lyrical comes from the Greek word for lyre, because lyric poems were meant to be accompanied by music. But they always extolled my “lyrical language.”
They didn’t make note of my feel for a book, or my mastery of an idea. Because every one of my teachers praised my writing. And all indications were, this was the way to go. I was skimming along on the surface of things, with no regard for what I said, so long as I said it artfully. I was definitely OUT of the basement - with a vengeance. All through middle and high school, I wrote book reports without ever reading the books I described in florid, heartrending prose I answered test questions with lengthy, ponderous essays on subjects I hadn’t bothered to study. I began to “coast” through school on the strength of my writing alone. In fact, I acquired such a fondness for the sound and shape of words and developed such proficiency in their skillful arrangement, that soon I wasn't paying attention to content at all. Of course, this savoring business can be carried to extremes. I credit them to this day with making me a slow reader. Now even though this Basement metaphor was not lost on us exiles, I loved our snug, warm tunnel of a classroom, and I ADORED Sam and the Rat. Sam chased the Rat, who Ran around the Rug in tiny mimeographed booklets, illustrated with black and white stick figures. My B’s, C’s, and D’s, my S’s, E’s R’s, and P’s all faced backwards and to the left, instead of forward and to the right.įor this minor quirk I was consigned to the “Basement Reading Group.” There, exiled from the four-color, spritely lives of Dick and Jane, I joined a small contingent of wayward souls who followed the adventures of Sam and the Rat. Which is a lovely term, rife with poetic implications, but which simply means that I formed many of my letters in reverse. It was she who discovered that I was a Mirror Writer. Doughterty was my first grade teacher, a pretty woman with dark hair and eyes, and a sharp nose from which I should have taken warning. I won't spend this entire lecture on my autobiography, but Mrs.
So let me start where the seeds were sown, where my overwriting began. And hopefully, by sharing them, save you some time and energy as you face the same problems. I will have something to say later about erring on the skimpy side, but you should understand that I’ve always treated these talks as a sort of lab, where I can examine my own process, address my personal writing foibles. Most of this session will be about writing too much, not too little. My apologies, then, to those of you who write pithy, terse sentences. They are simply one writer’s thoughts on overwriting, an affliction I knew intimately for years, and one with which I continue to wrestle. F irst, the disclaimer: The following opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the management.
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