Poet and essayist Marianne Boruch writes, “Both poetry and the essay come from the same impulse—to think about something and, at the same time, see it closely, carefully, and enact it.” Imagine your poetry-self sitting down with your prose-self to talk through a piece of writing—a personal essay you’d like to create. Each brings its own unique way of thinking, its own language. They may even argue. The poetry-self spirals inward, dwelling in images, phrases, a moment in time, while the prose-self whirls outward, with sentences and connections propelling the reader forward. But what if they decided to collaborate? Just as the two superimposed, equilateral triangles create the powerful symbol of the Star of David, our poetry and prose can merge to engender the potent hybrid form of the lyric essay.
In this three-session workshop, each meeting will focus on a different type of lyric essay: collage, braided, and collaborative. We’ll intertwine biblical stories with our own, borrow language from Jewish philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber, and even work in chavruta to write a dual-voice essay. The goal is to stretch, to surprise ourselves, to experiment with our voices and to explore territory outside of our poetry. Readings and prompts will be provided before each session, with the aim of creating rough drafts of each kind of lyric essay.