I'm not actually done talking about those fabulous YoungArts writers yet. Indeed, for the past several weeks, I've been eagerly anticipating the arrival of
Hairography, the book my husband and I created to celebrate the work of these super novas. Bill took the gorgeous portraits; he designed the book. I encouraged and prodded. The National YoungArts Foundation made the publication possible.
Today
Hairography arrives in the students' mailboxes. I am immeasurably happy about that. This, above, is Miss Shelley Hucks, whose beautiful words close the book. And here are some of my words, from the preface:
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The thing about being a “master” teacher in the National YoungArts Foundation program is that there are no rules. You are invited to come to Miami in early January, to stand among the finalists of a rigorous national contest, and to divulge (perhaps) who you’ve been, where you’ve traveled, what you’ve learned, what failure taught you, what the dream looks like on the opposite side of the moon. As a writer who has experimented with all genres and published in most, as a person who takes greatest pleasure from watching others soar, as a woman more inclined to listen than to speak, I chose to invite the two dozen bright lights to see themselves new and to report back on their adventures.
Hairography I called it. What does the stuff on the top of your head have to say?How will it say it? What is the mood, the tone, the diction, the lexiconical reach? How does the hair manage to think when it is perpetually leaving itself behind?Is it at peace? Can it know peace? Find the pronoun, name the gender, consider plurals and singulars, tense and tone, or don’t. Write the autobiography of your hair.
A few minutes ago, while searching for a slip of paper I had carried home with me from Florence, I found a folder full of exercises I'd given a private student years ago. We'd had a week together, eight hours each day, and I had given every day a name—Childhood Remembered, Place as Poetry, Beyond Life Itself, that sort of thing. The readings I'd assembled for each day were to serve as both inspiration and prompt.
Oh, I thought, as I rediscovered this folder. I should write a book about teaching, a book that would allow me to celebrate all the books I've loved. Or at least some of them. A fraction.
And then I remembered: I already did.
So here, for those of you seeking a prompt on this day, is a small simple thing. Return to your favorite passages in books (fiction or memoir, even poems—in this case it doesn't matter) that limn an early childhood scene. For my student I chose the early pages of Paul Horgan's
The Richard Trilogy, A. Manette Ansay in
Limbo, and Sue Monk Kidd from
The Secret Life of Bees. We read the pages together and then considered:
* the physical details that surfaced most quickly when my student was asked to remember his childhood home;
* the nature of childhood memories that he considered most dear; and
* the first event in his life that he considered tragic.
He then wrote a fragment of memoir that returned to that time and place.
Here's a paragraph from Sue Monk Kidd to get you started:
At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.
For more thoughts on memoirs, memoir making, and prompt exercises, please visit my dedicated Handling the Truth page.
Looks like a beautiful publication - I'm sure the students will enjoy having it!
Humbled and honored by the mention in connection with this remarkable collection of work, people, art and writing.