A May (2024) Update from MEH
My monthly (?) missive on all things MEH
Random Thoughts & Writing Prompts
It’s the time of the year when my sophomores are reading Tim O’Brien’s collection The Things They Carried and compose their own creative nonfiction (or memoir or narrative essay or person stories. I let others fight about the distinctions).
I do an actual song and dance, every single class session, wherein I remind them “you can write about happy things!” (*cue jazz hands*) even though I am a horrible role model in that regard, which I own. However, there was the one story I wrote about the concussed baby squirrel a kid brought to class, and the glorious gaslighting of the administrator who attempted to investigate. Regardless, no matter how on-key I sing, how fast my footwork, they don’t all write from wellsprings of joy. They hardly ever do.
There is a passage in O’Brien’s story “Notes” that we spend half a class period analyzing and then returning to throughout the unit:
“I did not look on my work as therapy, and still don't. Yet… it occurred to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.”
We discuss how our writing is not therapy, even if it can be therapeutic. Some actually write in concert with their therapists. Some make confessions in private that lead to a walk down the hall to people with the appropriate letters behind their names (LSW, LMFT, LCP, LCMHC, etc).
We focus on how to “objectify” the moment(s) they chose, to “separate it” from themselves to see it from new angles. How to “pin down” both the historical and emotional truths, finding the right words, crafting the right images, to tell the story they want to tell. All because there are worse things than the paralysis we can have spiraling about a past event. Much worse.
The stories they write are gathered into an anthology of all the sophomore sections I am teaching in a given year. Usually around 70-75 students. Print and electronic copies are made available to only those in my classes. This adds a layer of authenticity in terms of audience (teachers: take note). It raises the stakes when it’s not only your teacher reading your story. Some have even sent their work out for consideration in journals after. A bunch of them have been published. To mitigate the terror that sets in, I write alongside them—It’s one of the few times I directly share my writing with them. Modelling creative vulnerability, they get to read about my own struggles with mental health, discovering why some people have questioned my sexuality, and being a Black poet in a sea of white audiences. Since that only goes so far, they are told their story can be presented anonymously in the anthology. They also rely on O’Brien’s use of “Spin”: they have complete control over what information they withhold, change, or otherwise turn to suit the purpose of protecting the story or the people involved is fine.
This year, a different part of “Notes” stood out to me. I’m not sure why. It is likely because of some interaction with one of my kids, or a colleague, or a friend, or myself. O’Brien highlights a danger in spinning the tale, moving away from historical truth in name of protection oneself or others:
“…something about the story had frightened me—I was afraid to speak directly, afraid to remember—and in the end the piece had been ruined by a failure to tell the full and exact truth…”
Though there are myriad reasons this can happen, often valid, there is a danger in not telling the story we need to. Being afraid of the story. Continuing to tell a more comfortable lie, a spun and re-spun version of reality encasing us in something more harmful than tearing into the truth. Telling the difference is a work in itself. But that’s a post for another day. Right now, I’m trying to help my kids see that difference, feel that difference, write that difference.
What’s the whole truth you need to write about, without spinning, without apology? What do you need to get outside of yourself to see more clearly? But remember, this could be a call for you to write about happy things.
Poetry Collections I’ve Recently Read
Midwest Hymns ~ Dale Cottingham
Hunting the Bugs ~ Jack Giaour
Postcards from the Masthead ~ Candice Kelsey
Anxious Music ~ April Ossmann
Moon Grammar ~ Matthew Porto
Latest News and Publications
Recent Publications
My poem “the Blue Envelope Program” was published in The New Verse News,
I have recent acceptances from Mid-Atlantic Review and work forthcoming in Porcupine Literary and The Radical Teacher .
Recent Events
I was privileged to have readings at the Weston Public Library with Hannah Larrabee, online as part of the Conversations with Jimmy and Friends series,
Rozzie Reads with Jennifer Jean and Jason Tandon, at A Great Notion Bookstore, and Maxima Book Center.
Upcoming Readings and Events
For May (so far…)
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 ~ Riverwood Poetry Series (CT) with Randall Horton
Thursday, May 23, 2024 ~ Rozzie Bound Books Reading at Distraction Brewing Co (MA) with Toni Bee, Tom Daley, Maureen McElroy, and Linda Carney-Goodrich
[Any updates will be posted on my website]
Why yes, you can still order a copy of my latest collection. How nice of you to ask.
