Like Orpheus and His Songs

A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays edited by Randon Billings Noble

In my last book review, I mentioned A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays as an indispensable resource for the lover and the writer of lyric essays. So it seemed to me to be only right to speak about that collection more particularly.

In her Introduction, editor Randon Billings Noble begins with a definition of the lyric essay. Quickly, however, she admits that “the lyric essay is slippery. There’s no widespread agreement on what it is or what to call it.” It is equally difficult to point with any kind of precision to that first ur lyric essay, the one that spawned all that followed. Was it Deborah Tall because she coined the phrase “lyric essay” in 1993 or Montaigne when he described his writing as an essai or could it be Sei Shonagan in 10th century Japan with her pillow book of things she hates?

Instead of a hard and fast definition of the lyric essay, Noble lists some of the numerous qualities that a lyric essay can possess, such as

• the power “to soothe, to harrow, to persuade, to move, to raise, to rouse, to overcome;”

• “to question more than answer;”

• to embody “a kind of passion, a commitment to weirdness in the face of convention, a willingness to risk confusion, a comfort with outsider status.”

Like Orpheus and his songs, a lyric essay is meant to raise the dead.

What’s It About

A Harp in the Stars consists of 45 lyric essays categorized as flash, hermit crab, braided, and/or segmented essays. Many of these essays were written by authors I know and love. The poet Diane Seuss, memoirist Lidia Yuknavitch, teachers Elissa Washuta and Dinty W. Moore, as well as Noble herself. For the lover of lyric essays who wishes to read more of this genre, this first section of A Harp in the Stars is enough.

For the writer and teacher of the lyric essay, however, there are also six craft essays written by established authorities in the field. For example, Heidi Czerwiec tackles the question of form, Marina Blitshteyn speaks of voice, while Chelsea Clammer confesses to lying.

As a further resource for writers and teachers alike (as well as proof of the impossibility of defining the lyric essay), A Harp in the Star closes with “Meditations” by each of the contributing authors who offer their take on the slippery topic of the lyric essay.

The Nerdy Stuff

As you can conclude from the foregoing, there is no easy way to define a lyric essay. Like pornography, you know it when you see it. So rather than add my own feeble attempt at definition, let me quote from some of my favorite essays from A Star in the Harp.

But first, one big caveat.

The power of flash lies in its ability to create a whole world in the space of 1000 words while the elegance of the hermit crab, segmented or braided essay will not reveal itself unless you see the whole. This Substack is too limited to show the whole so we must suffice with these glimpses.

From “Thanatophobia” by Christian Noel Kauffman, the opening of a braided essay:

The first thing I learn about death is the way a dustpan can sever the head of a snake.

From “Informed Consent” by Elizabeth K. Brown, a hermit crab essay, footnote 9:

While you are vaguely aware of the actual effects alcohol could, hypothetically, have on your life were you to partake, you are concretely aware of the effects alcohol has had on your mother’s life. You—the fact that you exist—are proof of her “drinking behavior.” You’ve done the math.

From “My Mother’s Mother” by Davon Loeb, a segmented essay:

The land surrounding the house was covered by hundreds of trees—thick, swollen, sturdy trees—trees that never warped under the hulking Alabama sun—trees whose boughs never broke—trees whose roots never loosened—trees that, for however many years, lived in testament to never change.

From “Frida’s Circle” by Dinty W. Moore, the last line of a flash essay:

A few days before she died, she wrote in her diary: “I hope the exit is joyful—and I hope never to return.”

Why I Like It

Noble is a writer and teacher of lyric essays. As a writer, she never concerned herself with categories or rules. If A Harp in the Stars tells us anything, it is that there are no rules when it comes to writing a lyric essay.

But once Noble started teaching the lyric essay. she found herself reaching for definitions, words that could make the form “a little more accessible and understandable.” I have taught some of the essays in A Harp in the Stars. As a coach, I have used others as examples of how wild the lyric essay can be. For example, “Vide” by Sarah Minor is a segmented essay printed in the form of waves, each wave in its own tint of gray, to be read per segment or across segments for who knows where the wave begins or ends?

So I say to my students and all practitioners of the art of the lyric essay, go forth and raise the dead.