From the Editor (Issue 3):
We live in a world of music. To sway with the breeze, like the trees, the flowers, to engage with or at least recognize a form of lyricism in the world around us, this is nature’s gamboling. Animal kind, too, the steady stalking of a predator after prey, or a bird’s insistent song, speaks rhythm. Even the stars hum, astronomers say.
In our attempts to write what we see and hear, from the lives of people, experiences, frustrations, felt needs, we occasionally stumble upon “good sound,” that which we can call the lyricism of life put into words.
Reading Annie Dillard for the first time ushered me there, into a bright new world of allusion, deft language use, and metaphor. From then on, I ached to write with that kind of beauty and wit, one which, for me, far transcended generic nonfiction. All I could think about for months at a time were Holy the Firm and Teaching a Stone to Talk. I read and reread them. Then Living by Fiction and The Writing Life. The Living is becoming my fiction bible. There are no favorite quotes with Annie, only shining blocks such as: “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” She is one of the most influential writers of the recent past.
Then one day I stumbled upon the works of Ellen Meloy. In one book, she said, “I would like to do whatever it is that presses the essence from the hour.” And it seems she did just that. Ellen’s explorations into the desert southwest, her detailed research, her stunning grasp of language and expressive melodic style immediately made me a forever-fan. From Raven’s Exile to The Last Cheater’s Waltz to The Anthropology of Turquoise, Ellen became for me a second example of natural observation and exquisite literary presentation merged into one, just as Annie Dillard had done a few years before. I hope you find time to read from her delectable works.
I became acquainted with Stephanie Dickinson when I ran a very small press. I was enamored with her writing from the first page, the first line. We occasionally exchange emails and she never fails to prod me on and encourage me by her ever-present affirmation. To reference just one of her several books, The Emily Fables is a masterpiece of inventiveness and elegance, a written piece of art that plumbs the depths of the human condition, as all her works do. Stephanie has become a favorite contemporary author I’ll never tire of reading.
And lastly, along came Plainwater, Anne Carson’s incomparable collection of poetry and essays. Anne’s style is uniquely her own; each page is a delight, each line a lesson. “Language,” she said, “is what eases the pain of living with other people, language is what makes the wounds come open again.” Anne is that author “cut from different cloth,” a delight and an enigma.
Rare is the author who can force me, willingly, to read and reread her works so many times, but such have Annie, Ellen, Stephanie, and Anne. If I ever achieve any substantial recognition at all, I will gladly confess their influence.
In this issue, we’ve attempted to pull together the best lyric essays and hybrid pieces that came our way during our six-month reading period. Some read like prose poetry, stunning and colorful. Others take more of a memoir approach, and yet others, point by point, exemplify the essay form. In true genre-mingling style, as Deborah Tall revealed, the connections within a lyric essay are often only seen with distance, the entirety may consist of a series of metaphors, or “storyless, it may spiral in on itself, circling the core of a single image or idea, without climax, without a paraphrasable theme.” Truly, it often “elucidates through the dance of its own delving.”
Out of 364 pieces submitted to us in our lyric essay categories (short & long forms), we chose 19. To mix things up a little, we also asked for submissions to what we called our Odd Story category—a single piece of fiction in a nonfiction journal. We received 266 attempts and took 1. Kyle Owens’ “Testament” is consummate in its simplicity, its honesty, and its readability. Those familiar with Appalachian culture will recognize its understated truths.
We’re excited about the quality of these works and hope you sense the variety we were aiming for with each selection, though there are certainly themes to be found here. Hard metal & soft sand. Birth & birthdays, death & the extinguishing of a fire, beginnings & endings. Footprints, pathways. The stars, the heavens, Jesus & Lucifer. Others.
My wish is that each of the four lyricists honored with this issue would somehow sense my appreciation, though they may never see these words, or read these selections. May they feel the affinity between those who write the music and those who sing the songs as they’ve been written.
By way of further explanation, our mission was to seek those “good spaces”—not necessarily easy or without pain, but ultimately good—to grasp for that tiny sliver of light in a world often dark and unwelcoming, and to appeal to a wide audience, young and old, highly educated or living simply by their own wits. We hope we’ve accomplished it to some degree.
Appreciation goes to our editorial staff who read and read and read. In commonplace adage, I couldn’t have done it without them.
Many thanks to Christopher Wait at New Directions Publishing for permission to use Peter Smith’s photo of Anne Carson, Mark Meloy for permission to use the photo of Ellen, and Stephanie Dickinson for permission to use her photo taken by Lawrence Applebaum. Annie Dillard’s photographer was Phyllis Rose and the photo was available under Wikipedia’s GNU Free Documentation License.
In closing, I hope we will always, always, always follow our dreams. Tomorrow doesn’t wait, so why should we?
Chila Woychik
Shellsburg Iowa
July 2017
We live in a world of music. To sway with the breeze, like the trees, the flowers, to engage with or at least recognize a form of lyricism in the world around us, this is nature’s gamboling. Animal kind, too, the steady stalking of a predator after prey, or a bird’s insistent song, speaks rhythm. Even the stars hum, astronomers say.
In our attempts to write what we see and hear, from the lives of people, experiences, frustrations, felt needs, we occasionally stumble upon “good sound,” that which we can call the lyricism of life put into words.
Reading Annie Dillard for the first time ushered me there, into a bright new world of allusion, deft language use, and metaphor. From then on, I ached to write with that kind of beauty and wit, one which, for me, far transcended generic nonfiction. All I could think about for months at a time were Holy the Firm and Teaching a Stone to Talk. I read and reread them. Then Living by Fiction and The Writing Life. The Living is becoming my fiction bible. There are no favorite quotes with Annie, only shining blocks such as: “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” She is one of the most influential writers of the recent past.
Then one day I stumbled upon the works of Ellen Meloy. In one book, she said, “I would like to do whatever it is that presses the essence from the hour.” And it seems she did just that. Ellen’s explorations into the desert southwest, her detailed research, her stunning grasp of language and expressive melodic style immediately made me a forever-fan. From Raven’s Exile to The Last Cheater’s Waltz to The Anthropology of Turquoise, Ellen became for me a second example of natural observation and exquisite literary presentation merged into one, just as Annie Dillard had done a few years before. I hope you find time to read from her delectable works.
I became acquainted with Stephanie Dickinson when I ran a very small press. I was enamored with her writing from the first page, the first line. We occasionally exchange emails and she never fails to prod me on and encourage me by her ever-present affirmation. To reference just one of her several books, The Emily Fables is a masterpiece of inventiveness and elegance, a written piece of art that plumbs the depths of the human condition, as all her works do. Stephanie has become a favorite contemporary author I’ll never tire of reading.
And lastly, along came Plainwater, Anne Carson’s incomparable collection of poetry and essays. Anne’s style is uniquely her own; each page is a delight, each line a lesson. “Language,” she said, “is what eases the pain of living with other people, language is what makes the wounds come open again.” Anne is that author “cut from different cloth,” a delight and an enigma.
Rare is the author who can force me, willingly, to read and reread her works so many times, but such have Annie, Ellen, Stephanie, and Anne. If I ever achieve any substantial recognition at all, I will gladly confess their influence.
In this issue, we’ve attempted to pull together the best lyric essays and hybrid pieces that came our way during our six-month reading period. Some read like prose poetry, stunning and colorful. Others take more of a memoir approach, and yet others, point by point, exemplify the essay form. In true genre-mingling style, as Deborah Tall revealed, the connections within a lyric essay are often only seen with distance, the entirety may consist of a series of metaphors, or “storyless, it may spiral in on itself, circling the core of a single image or idea, without climax, without a paraphrasable theme.” Truly, it often “elucidates through the dance of its own delving.”
Out of 364 pieces submitted to us in our lyric essay categories (short & long forms), we chose 19. To mix things up a little, we also asked for submissions to what we called our Odd Story category—a single piece of fiction in a nonfiction journal. We received 266 attempts and took 1. Kyle Owens’ “Testament” is consummate in its simplicity, its honesty, and its readability. Those familiar with Appalachian culture will recognize its understated truths.
We’re excited about the quality of these works and hope you sense the variety we were aiming for with each selection, though there are certainly themes to be found here. Hard metal & soft sand. Birth & birthdays, death & the extinguishing of a fire, beginnings & endings. Footprints, pathways. The stars, the heavens, Jesus & Lucifer. Others.
My wish is that each of the four lyricists honored with this issue would somehow sense my appreciation, though they may never see these words, or read these selections. May they feel the affinity between those who write the music and those who sing the songs as they’ve been written.
By way of further explanation, our mission was to seek those “good spaces”—not necessarily easy or without pain, but ultimately good—to grasp for that tiny sliver of light in a world often dark and unwelcoming, and to appeal to a wide audience, young and old, highly educated or living simply by their own wits. We hope we’ve accomplished it to some degree.
Appreciation goes to our editorial staff who read and read and read. In commonplace adage, I couldn’t have done it without them.
Many thanks to Christopher Wait at New Directions Publishing for permission to use Peter Smith’s photo of Anne Carson, Mark Meloy for permission to use the photo of Ellen, and Stephanie Dickinson for permission to use her photo taken by Lawrence Applebaum. Annie Dillard’s photographer was Phyllis Rose and the photo was available under Wikipedia’s GNU Free Documentation License.
In closing, I hope we will always, always, always follow our dreams. Tomorrow doesn’t wait, so why should we?
Chila Woychik
Shellsburg Iowa
July 2017