“The lyric essay reminds me of lily pads slathered across the surface of a pond. . . . imagine my surprise when I learned lily pads were not merely floating atop the water but were actually tethered to the bottom of the pond through an intricate system of stems, tubes, and stoma. Lush and dense, pleasing to the eye, often placid on the surface but always carefully, even painstakingly, organized on the the underside . . .”
—Julie Marie Wade, from “What’s Missing Here” in A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays edited by Randon Billings Noble
The term Lyric Essay was first used in the early 1990s by poet and essayist Deborah Tall and was defined in the Seneca Review in 1997: “The lyric essay takes from the prose poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language.”
In the last few years, the medium has become more popular among writers, more writers have experimented with its expansiveness, with its focus on patterns and rhythms, sound and imagery. This hybrid form of prose writing that can resemble poetry, often employs an unusual structure, can include visuals, relies on imagery and imagination more than a narrative, and typically delivers the reader a sensory experience with a focus on the beauty of language. The lyric essay can be a bit of a shapeshifter, with the sometimes troublesome but often curious habit of resisting being pinned down by a definition.
We’ll be joined by 4 authors who’ve used the lyric essay in their own writing: Julie Marie Wade, author of the newly released nonfiction novella, The Mary Years (Texas Review Press, 2024), Jill Talbot, author of The Last Year: Essays (Wandering Aengus Press, 2023), Elissa Washuta author of White Magic (Tin House, 2021), and Annaliese Jakimides who has been published in many journals and shows up everyday to write about people and place, about the narrative of our lives.
This event is FREE and will be live on Zoom Sunday June 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM EST.
Find out more about the presenters
