The Lyric Essay: Invitation to Play

When author Beth Peterson was looking for a different type of nonfiction, she wanted something that “made room for gaps and silences.” She found it in the lyric essay, a literary hybrid of poetry and essay that enables the author to explore those gaps and silences in a uniquely personal way. The lyric essay is an invitation to play and experiment with form, words, and ideas.

This ten-week course will examine the lyric essay, its growing popularity, and how it draws upon literary forms like poetry, memoir, and nonfiction to create dynamic, genre-bending works. A video lecture posted on Wednesday morning explores the week’s craft element in detail, supplies short readings from literature, offers multiple writing prompts, and suggests a bibliography for further exploration. Students will share one piece of writing weekly (up to 500 words), receiving comprehensive feedback from Elizabeth, as well as thoughts from their fellow writers. By the end of the course, students will create original writing using each of the techniques explored in class and complete two to three lyrical essays ready for publication. 

Whether you’re a poet, essayist, memoirist or fiction writer, this course will open your mind and galvanize your creative writing practice.

Learning & Writing Goals

Learning Goals:

• You will gain an understanding of the genre of creative writing known as the lyric essay.
• You will practice different writing techniques and try different forms of the lyric essay.
• You will practice varied forms of narrative and poetic devices.
• You will gain proficiency in writing lyric essays.

Writing Goals: 

• You will write up to 500 words a week in response to prompts and receive feedback from Elizabeth as well as your fellow students.
• You will revise your own work using lyrical techniques.
• You will complete two to three lyric essays ready for publication.
• You will develop a list of publications to read for inspiration submissions for your own work.

Zoom Component

We will meet for one hour on Zoom three times during the duration of the course to build community and discuss our work.  This is an optional component of the course.  The date and time for these calls will be scheduled after the course begins.

Weekly Syllabus

Week 1: Meet the Lyric Essay

What is a lyric essay? How does this slippery form blend poetry, prose, memoir and even recipes to create something entirely unique? Mark Doty, Elisa Gabbert, Zadie Smith, John D’Agata

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 2: Weaving at the Loom

This week we consider various forms like the braided essay, hermit crab essay and more avant-garde forms like the list lyric essay. Emily Geminder, Roxane Gay, Jenny Boully, Zadie Smith

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 3: Tell It Slant

Find your own voice— and it can be as quirky as you like with the lyric essay. Do you hover on the peripheral edge of things or cut straight to the emotional core? Joan Didion, Claudia Rankine, Truman Capote, David Foster Wallace

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 4: Glorious Detail

Powerful, sensory imagery does more than transport the reader— it indirectly evokes emotional experiences. Heidi Czerwiec, Diane Ackerman, Elizabeth AI Powell

 Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 5: Poetics

Dip into the poetry tool kit with alliteration, consonance, syntax, white space, sentence lengths and more. Anne Carson, Mary Ruefle, Maureen Thorson

Homework: Write up to 250 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 6: Cut and Paste

Go deeper into the collage essay and borrow from the specialized lexicons of philosophy, perfumery, anthropology, history, cookery, and the natural world. Maggie Nelson, Susan Howe, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 7: The Flaneur

The discursive nature of the lyric essay lends itself particularly well to the urban wanderings of the flaneur. Charles Baudelaire, Jean Genet, Pattie Smith

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 8: Consider the Prose Poem

Focus on the musicality and imaginative sense of play unique to lyric essay’s twin form—the prose poem. Charles Simic, Sandra Lim, Martha Ronk

Homework: Write up to 250 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 9: Writing Your Icons

Write your own celebrity profile within the freeing form of the lyric essay. Alana K Massey, Hilton Als, Kim Morgan, Gail Crowther

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

Week 10: Remembrance of Things Past

Expand and elevate your own personal experience beyond traditional memoir. MFK Fisher, Jennifer Cheng, Aurvi Sharma

Homework: Write up to 500 words inspired by one of this week’s writing prompts or any of the lyric essays discussed in class.

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