Presentation for Lyric Essay class, flash lesson plan, based on Rose Metal Field Guide & other readings. SFUAD.

1. H O W A R E C R U C I A L M O M E N T S D E T E R M I N E D
I N W R I T I N G T H A T D O E S N O T A D H E R E T O
C H R O N O L O G Y ?
Beginnings and Endings

2. The question of where we begin?
 “We begin with the trouble, but where does the
trouble begin? My uncle takes a pistol and blows his
brains out.” (Kyle Minor, Rose Metal, p. 134)
 What is Minor’s point in his querying the “cause”
and “effect” of this story?
 What point of view is this piece written in. Why?
 What mood does the meta produce?
 What genre do you see “appropriated” in Jimmy
Chen’s “The Water is Rising Pleas.”

3. http://www.theshortreview.com/authors/Jimmy
Chen.htm
 TSR: What does the word "story" mean to you?
 JC: It doesn't mean plot or character, an idea at the point
of some contention. I will admit my favorite stories -- like
any Raymond Carver, Dubliners, or Nine Stories -- are all
character based, but for me a "story" is simply a linguistic
gesture, a body of words which spawn ideas, even
problems about their own artifice. Borges, Perec, and
Barthelme are "problematic" writers in this way, which I
try to emulate. They saw a story as a riddle, a poem
without line breaks, which has been very instructive.

4. “Disassociation (The Natural Order)” (Nicole
Walker, Rose Metal, p. 144-150)
 Walker discusses the “yoking together of seemingly
disjointed elements surprises” (one might also
characterize this piece as a braided essay, perhaps).
 What is the idea that connects these? (p. 148)
 How does the paragraph r.e. foie gras evoke the
emotion of the piece?
 Is the “meat” of the essay an objective correlative?

5. Tenor & vehicle
 The only way of expressing emotion in the form of
art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other
words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events
which shall be the formula of that 'particular'
emotion; such that when the external facts, which
must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the
emotion is immediately evoked.” (Eliot, “Hamlet and
His Problems” 1919)
 How might we characterize Walker’s essay within
this framework?

6. endings & beginnings
 Jenny Boully’s work often is concerned with
absences, what is missing and usually found in
traditional narratives
 For example, in The Body (which some of you have
read, and which we will likely look at again this
semester), only footnotes are provided for an absent
text
 As readers, do we strive to find/construct the middle,
the narrative from its absences?
 What might that missing narrative be in this
excerpt/flash (p. 154-156)

7. What remains
 From a scribal point of view (scribe+tribe=scribal;
actually, this is not the real definition), some of what
Boully is practicing could be referred to as “erasure.”
 How does Boully’s work work?
 “Readers are smart. They want to participate and
want the pleasure of putting two and two together
themselves, of making discoveries along the way—
sometimes along with the writer and sometimes a
step ahead of the writer.” —Moore, “Positively
Negative” (Bending Genre)

8. Which is which
“Holes in an essay, I tell my students, flaws in the logic,
contradictions, unanswered questions, loose associations
may all be necessary because of what they ultimately make
possible. I believe this, but I also have my doubts. I am
suspicious of gaps, of silences, of contradictions because I
know how easily they hide unfinished thinking and insufficient
research.”
(Eula Biss, “It is What It Is,” Seneca Review)

9. “Words with the Hospital Chaplain”
(Asha Dore, Hippocampus)
 In groups, using the critique sheets you’ll be using
for one another’s piece:
 Group 1: Tackle Criteria #1
 Group 2: Tackle Criteria #2
 Group 3: Tackle Criteria #4
 Group Ambitious: Tackle another criteria in addition
the one assigned.