This past week in Document Your Life Story (DYLS) we discussed scene and summary as well as the importance of imagery in evoking emotions and giving us a sense of tone and mood. We read Mark Salzman’s short essay “The Kiss,” taking note of the small actions, language and setting that Salzman uses to take the reader from a laid-back dinner party to a boisterous discussion to an embarrassed round of throat clearing, only to end on a tender and delicate moment of intimacy.
We also looked at Sandra Cisneros very short piece “Bread,” using it as a point of entry into the topic of sensory images. Identifying the sensory images in the work of other writers (Cisneros’ use of the overwhelming smell of bread, for example), helps us to identify those images in our own writing. Those images and the sensation they evoke–hunger, in this instance–help us to find the heart of a piece, the “about-ness” of it.
Our assignment leaving class was to pay attention to the images we use as we work on our essays and memoirs. Personally, I’m about to sit down and write about a tender moment I shared with my dog many years back. I’m hoping the soft sweet scent of his freshly-washed fur and the click-clack of his toenails against the hardwood floors of my childhood home are enough to get the memory going.
