New essays

Song Lyrics As Overlooked Poetry

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

When I was a 7th grade English teacher, and we had a Poetry unit, I had my students write down the lyrics to their favorite songs to share in class. Then we talked about the lyrics in terms of poetic sense, storytelling, word usage, and emotional resonance. 7th graders love music, but mostly they don’t think they will like poetry (they usually groaned when I announced the Poetry unit).

It was kind of hard not to sing the lyrics, but we made ourselves just speak the lyrics, and had some good laughs over the repetition and corniness of some songs. The whole class would usually burst into song at some point during several readings of the lyrics. It was really kind of fun.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I visited a special exhibit about the Rolling Stones at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was an amazing collection of their guitars, concert posters, photos, videos, clothing, and music. There was one section that had the REAL notebooks that were kept by various band members – notebooks where they wrote down their song lyrics. By hand, with pencils and pens.

Just like the rest of us writers (well, maybe not just like…) they started with an idea, or a feeling, and just started writing. They approach the creative process just like the rest of us non-famous writers. By putting one word after another, and trying to make their words sing.

In Praise of Nerd-dom

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(A short essay in response to the Scripps Spelling Bee…)

I love seeing the faces of the finalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in news reports this morning. Bafflement, beady-eyed concentration, stunned cluelessness, and triumph are all written across the faces of these adolescent nerdy types. Released from being stuffed into lockers, being pelted with dodge balls, and being exiled to the bad lunch tables, this is their moment.

I actually find it amazing that spelling bees are still part of our culture. After all, computers have programs to check our spelling, and who spells anything out in e-mail or on Twitter? Like school bake sales, home economics, and white cotton P. E. uniforms, they seem an anachronism, a throwback to a more contemplative, cerebral, Mayberry-ish time. Continue reading →

Max Bran (A Story)

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(A new unpublished essay/story today about my cab ride with Max Bran, a San Francisco musician.)

When I met Max Bran he was driving a taxi in San Francisco. It was an old beat-up taxi, a clunker. It was raining and I decided to splurge on a cab because I had been waiting for a bus for quite a long time, and it was late at night, and I was in a part of town that didn’t seem so good now that it was nearing midnight. I usually ride buses in cities when I travel because it’s a good way to get to know a city, and also to observe the people who really live there.

I am a person who can’t tolerate silence in a cab unless I ascertain right away that the cab driver does not speak English. This particular night I was sort of dejected because my agent had just that afternoon told me she didn’t think she was the right agent for me. She had been my agent for seven years and had never sold my short story collection or any potential books that I had outlined and was in the process of working on. I was secretly glad that she had finally brought up this idea of separation because I knew I would never have had the guts to do it myself. I was still hurt though because she was really my only connection to the literary world in New York City, if such a relationship – one in which nothing had happened – could be considered a connection. Continue reading →

Re-Thinking An Essay – After It’s Too Late

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(The link below will take you to the Brevity  nonfiction blog for an essay I just published yesterday. Or you can read below.)

Re-thinking an Essay – After It’s Too Late

I recently published an essay, “A Stranger At the Door,” on the Op/Ed page of the Chicago Tribune. And after reading it in its printed form, already irrevocably out there in the world – literally in black and white – I wanted to revise it. I really, really wanted to revise it. In fact, I wanted to rewrite the whole damn thing. But it was too late. The Chicago Tribune editorial policy (as I’m sure is the editorial policy of any traditional publication) is that authors are not allowed to change or comment on their own work once it is published.

As my editor replied to me in an email, “We don’t run letters by authors critiquing their own work.” Of course they don’t! Just think of all the confusion that might take place if this were allowed to happen.

“Oh, wait a minute, I just thought of something else I wanted to add in the third paragraph…” Or, “I really don’t think I hit the right tone, and I’d like to hand in this revised version.” The nature of an editor’s job, after all, is to move forward with the current, not drown in the undertow. Continue reading →