The document explores the interplay of voice, sound, and time in writing lyric essays, highlighting the differences between the 'voice of innocence' and 'voice of experience' as described by Sue William Silverman. It discusses how rhythmic elements and sentence structure contribute to the writing experience, emphasizing the importance of verb tenses and perspective in narrative. Exercises are proposed to encourage the transformation of straightforward images into lyrical interpretations and to embrace the ambiguity inherent in lyric essays.

1. VOICE,
SOUND &
TIME
COMPRESSING THE ELEMENTS

2. THE ARTFUL “I”
Voice as construction
How does the “artfully constructed” self differ from the
author’s self?
Sue William Silverman (Flash, p. 71) borrows William Blaker’s
“Voice of Innocence” and “Voice of Experience” to describe
the two artful voices that work together.
In lyric essay, in flash, the Voice of Experience transforms
facts into metaphor, information into exploration, surface into
depth.

3. ARCHIPELAGO
Take a minute and identify examples of lines in the piece that
seem to use the voice of innocence and those that channel
the voice of experience.
Now, thinking about our discussions of lyric and essay, what
devices is the author using that fall into the more prosaic
essay element of lyric essay; what devices are being used to
transform this memoir into a more lyric piece?
Let’s try the exercise now on p. 72: Write one specific image
from your hometown simply, in that voice of innocence; the
facts. Now, take that sentence (or two sentences) and
transform it with lyric language that allows the voice of
experience to render it with meaning. Keep both sentences
on the page to read when we’re finished.

4. I GOT RHYTHM
As we’ve discussed, many writers maintain that a lyric essay
requires actual lyricism to fit the bill.
To be lyrical does not actually mean to be musical, it means
to be expressive, artistic, beautiful, but a lyric poem
originally meant a poem set for song; now refers to a poem
that expresses a personal feeling
Nonetheless, lyric does imply, at least, a musicality; what is
the difference commonly between the musical experience
and the reading experience. Or, put another way, what is the
common difference between the reading experience of a
poem and an essay?

5. SOUND
Barbara Hurd (Flash, p. 76) evokes Aristotle in maintaining
that it is rhythm more than the other sensory elements of
writing that can “resemble dispositions”)
As writers, we use punctuation and sentence structure to
slow and hasten elements of writers. As poets, various
rhythmic patterns create even more intensive effects.
In a writing exercise, we might employ effects simply for the
sake of doing so; but in writing, the rhythmic elements are
used to shape the experience, as an element of structure.

6. “PAUSES”
Read along with me and notice:
Sounds
Rhythms
Movement
How do these elements work in conjunction with what’s
being said?
Exercise: Take your already written sentences and re-craft
them: First, use syntax to alternate long and short sentences.
Then, use sound to alternate soft and hard sounds.

7. WHERE HAS THE TIME
GONE?
I know everybody loves verb tenses so much. When I typed
that sentence, I was being sarcastic. I will stop being so now
and return to the matter at hand (I had thought initially to use
this bullet point to demonstrate verb tenses rather than
discuss them; hopefully my point has become clear or at
least will become clear in the following moments).
Most of us have fallen into the verb tense error zone, in
which we slip into the wrong tense—a story told in present
tense suddenly veers into past or visa versa.
Of course, we know that shifts in tense can (should, one
might argue; I think I’ll argue it) happen in prose, but must
happen artfully.

8. TENSE AND POV
Cantú argues (Flash, p. 106) and it is a general writing rule
that past tense provides a more distanced viewpoint than
present. Why?
What is the key difference between using the present tense
to describe past events and using the historical present?
One way to think about this is to mark (in your head or on a
page), a multi-faceted timeline:
When is the event happening? When is the telling of the
event happening? When is the point of view on the event
happening? In present tense, all of these should happen at
the same point on the timeline. In past or in historical
present, the point of view and/or the telling can be at different
points than the events themselves.

9. OF SONG AND TEARS
What makes this an autobioethnographic essay?
Identify shifts in time. What shifts in the essay as a result?
Identify
What are the lyric elements in this piece?
What is the essay itself concerned with?
Observations about voice?

10. PARTS AND WHOLE
If the freedom of the lyric essay is its lack of rigidity as
regards narrative and thesis, and its danger is of
formlessness and lack of cohesion, then its challenge (for
the reader, or the student in the lyric essay class) is to find
its questions—and in so doing, perhaps, to find its purpose.
In a college freshman writing class, one should know the
“point” of an essay. Perhaps in a lyric essay class, one
should know the question(s) driving a lyric essay. Even if
those questions remain unanswered. A lyric essay requires
us to accept ambiguity; not to accept_______________.
That doesn’t mean if you don’t understand on the first
reading, the essay has failed. It means________________.

11. THE SOILS I HAVE
EATEN
Aimee Nezhukumatahil (Flash, p. 116) discusses her “list”
device for creating an essay comprised of smaller essays
that circle around rather than explicitly or linearly drive to the
point.
Nonetheless, “all the sections taken (read) together should
be greater than the sum of the parts.”
In other words, should create a feeling about the topic at
hand, or a mood, and generate larger ideas and questions
(should not simply be a poetic Wikipedia entry…unless,
perhaps, you were writing a received forms essay, but we’ll
get there in a few weeks).
Pull together some of the elements we’ve discussed in this
piece.

12. AND NOW IN GROUPS
Group 1: “Soundtrack” by Sally Ashton
Group 2: “PostMortem” by Traci Brimhall
Group 3: “The Essay Determines How it Will Begin” by Suzanne
Roberts
Read your essay (or re-read, I assume) together. Discuss: lyric
elements (sounds, poetic devices, rhythm); essay elements (the
questions it raises, the ideas it explores); voice: experience and
reflection; time (how does the “flash” happen?; Other
observations? Formal moves? Mood? Research?

13. GENERATIVE
EXERCISE
This exercise appears abecedarian in nature, but—somewhat like our
explorations in Oulipo, the means and the end don’t have to be
connected. In other words, we use these exercises to break through our
own mental patterns, not necessarily to write an abecedarian essay, in
this case.
This exercise designed to a. support use of concrete imagery; b. to
support a turn-away from linear thought (or not); to use segmentation to
derive both movement and the lyric essay’s use of association rather
than chronology. (Flash, p 40).
“When writing flash fiction, some writers have a hard time grasping how
segmentation can derive its energy from juxtaposition. They will often
break white space to idicate a slight leap forward in time, but then they
often proceed chronologically, which can diffues the true power of
segmentation.”

14. OTHER VIEWS
You may not see obvious connections between the graphs
you’ve written at first, but likely they are there. After all, you
wrote all of them.
You may wish to simply use this idea of segmentation, but
perhaps also incorporate the classification idea mentioned from
the exercise.
You may wish to develop this exercise toward your flash piece,
employing now the various elements we’ve discussed (spoiler,
these are the main elements we’ll use toward critique).
You may wish to salvage some portion for a different essay.
You may wish to start something completely different
You may, of course, use any of the exercises in our book as a
prompt toward an essay if you’re stuck.