...And we're off!
I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that this is my last semester, that I've finally reached the pinnacle that once seemed so high and mighty: senior capstone. Were we really freshmen once, looking up to the capstone students like well-equipped warriors off to fight some bloody battle? Ah, the good ol' days. The blissful innocence.
Well, we've hit the ground running, and I suppose there's no looking back now. I just hope we won't be killing each other (or ourselves) before this is all over. (Ha ha, just kidding.) Anyway, I guess this is where I start talking about what I've been reading and working on (I'm still trying to gather my bearings about all this).
For my portfolio, I'll be doing two personal essays and two poems. Since my first project is an essay, I've been reading (big shocker!) some personal essays. I picked up Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories, a collection of autobiographical essays relating to the idea of memory, because I recalled reading a few of her essays in Autobiographical Writing. I remember loving both her use of language and her advice/commentary on memoir - a genre that I'm becoming more and more fascinated with but which I still don't fully understand. So, Hampl will probably be my memoir mentor for a little while here.
So far, I love this book. Hampl weaves her personal experiences into reflections on reading and the nature of memory. I like this approach because it blends the realms of reading and writing and adds a universal applicability to the specific stories of her personal life. As she says in her preface, "writers write about writing and about books not because, like us, books turn to dust, but because, like us, they are born of flesh, and you can feel the blood beat along their pulse" (12). I saw this exemplified in her essay "The Mayflower Moment: Reading Whitman During the Vietnam War," in which she intersperses her reactions to Walt Whitman's poetry with her grappling with individual and national identity as a young adult living during the divisive time of the Vietnam War.
I could definitely learn from Hampl's style because my personal essays tend to really emphasize the personal, and I need to learn how to incorporate universal themes and outside sources into my writing so that I can invite others into my experience. I don't want my essays (at least this first one) to be quite as expository as some of Hampl's seem to be, but I really love her ability to zoom in and out, to ground the reader in concrete detail about her past in one sentence and to explain some general truth in the next. I also appreciate her ability to interact with a text without sounding too scholarly or intellectual - she brings a realness to reading that I love.
Well, that's all for now, folks. I'm excited to start this journey with you all!
The first aspect that caught my eye was “writers write about writing and about books…” because that’s essentially what my last essay (for Advanced Writer’s Workshop) was about—stories, not necessarily my own, and how they’re sometimes more real than people. It’s an interesting perspective—instead of saying writers tend to write what they know, Hampl claims stories have “blood,” their own life, as such. I’d certainly agree with that—I’ve had more conversations with friends about fictional people than about other real people. Even literary criticism tends to analyze characters as if they’re people with free will, otherwise we wouldn’t have debates on the motivations of Hamlet or the personality of Mr. Darcy.
ReplyDeleteAnother part of this post that interested me is how your personal essays tend to be too personal. I have the opposite problem—I can write about a topic or outside theme, but I don’t always know how to incorporate personal experiences. Sometimes that’s because I can’t come up with a specific event; for example, my entire education before high school blurs together since I was homeschooled. On the other hand, some of my other experiences seem to require so much background that I don’t know how to efficiently include them in the essay. Peer critiques are helpful sometimes, but I tend to overestimate how much I need and then write less than that, leaving the events half-sketched and useless.
Sarah, thanks for your honesty! I am still trying to gather my bearings as well surrounding Capstone and all it entails. When I was a freshman I too looked at this semester with awe and thought it held a lot more mystery than it does. Turns out we're still ourselves, and it's not as scary as I made it out to be.
ReplyDeletePatricia Hampl sounds wonderful. I've been interested in memoir in personal essays as well (though I haven't read any as of yet. Only poetry), especially since memories are so important to include. I agree with your point about your writing being too personal. I have that problem as well, and sometimes it takes a couple drafts for those universal themes to come into the story.
Question for you: When you write your personal essays, do you usually start with the personal and then try to branch out into a universal theme or the other way around? Which is the most helpful for you, do you think? I'm curious because I think the reason adding larger issues to my writing is harder for me is because I tend to have trouble getting outside myself.
Sarah H. (well, and all of you)--you *are* still yourselves! That's the best thing about Capstone, for me--you each get to individuate more and more, learning about your process, your subject matter, etc.
DeleteAs for the chicken-or-egg question re: personal/universal--I think it's often best to start with story (stories), then interrogate them for theme...but, of course, there are always exceptions! Sometimes the theme (or part of it, at least) may clarify for you independently of writing, or early in the process...you never know. Either way, you just want to be open and ready when it arrives.