Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • Prompt Series—FREE
  • For Writers
  • Daily Poem-Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

“The Art of the Essay” Book Club: True

By Megan Willome Leave a Comment

Charity Singleton Craig

Once something has been written, I’ve lost the ability to hold these words and thoughts and memories close.”
—Charity Singleton Craig

Why write? Essays or anything, really?

We pour our hearts into writing something, and it needs revision. And then it still gets rejected. We become a freelance writer and discover that the type of writing that pays the bills isn’t all that inspiring. We write something that we thought was carefully said, only to find the comment section filled with hate.

Our first two book club meetings looked at how to write essays. This final post is about why to write them.

Charity explores this subject in chapter 12, in which she asks, “Where do essays, with their big ideas and nuanced thinking, even fit in a culture that refuses to listen?” She then answers, “Our essays don’t just have meaning. They must mean something to us and to the world around us.”

Our essays must bear witness. They must be capital-T True. When we’ve finished writing, we may have written so truly that we feel a little true’d out, and that’s okay. There’s a loss, having released what we held so closely into the wide, wide world.

All my magazine columns expressed truth. Some of them were written with enough slant that they veered toward poetry. Only a few hit the True mark. For that kind of bravery, I needed to dive into the one creative genre most likely to reduce me to a puddle of simultaneous exhilaration and weepiness: musicals, in this case, Wicked.

My May 2011 column For Good, just in time for Mother’s Day, still moves me deeply (even though I don’t think it’s my best writing) because it’s about me, my mother, and my daughter. It’s capital-T true. At the time I wrote it I hoped it would mean something to the sizable population of the world that a) has a mother, b) has a daughter, c) loves The Wizard of Oz. I considered the timeless questions the musical asks: What does it mean to be wicked? To be popular? To be a friend?

“This is how we move from speculation past narcissism towards embodied critical thinking,” Charity writes. “This is how we stand by words.”

Because this essay is now eight years old, I reread it with knowledge that then-Megan could not know about her future. I stand by every word.

Write With Us

“An essay is an attempt — when I learned that, it was so liberating!” Charity told me.

You have one more attempt at writing something True. Think about your particular nexus of passion — the issues or subjects or stories that move you deeply. How could one of them become an essay, one bigger than you? Put something good in the world, in fewer than 1,000 words. Link in the comments.

Photo by Sandrine Néel, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.

Browse more book clubs with Charity Singleton Craig

MW-Joy of Poetry Front cover 367 x 265

“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”

—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro

Buy The Joy of Poetry Now

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Author, Editor at Tweetspeak Poetry
Megan Willome is the author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems. She also writes for the WACOAN magazine, the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post, and Magnolia Journal. When she goes to the library, she always comes home with at least one book for young people. Her day is incomplete without poetry and tea.
Megan Willome
Latest posts by Megan Willome (see all)
  • 50 States of Generosity: Washington - April 16, 2021
  • Children’s Book Club: ‘Dry’ by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman - April 9, 2021
  • Reading Generously: ‘How to Write a Form Poem’ by Tania Runyan - April 2, 2021

Related

❤️✨ Sharing is caring

Filed Under: book club, Book promotion, Essays, Patron Only

About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is the author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems. She also writes for the WACOAN magazine, the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post, and Magnolia Journal. When she goes to the library, she always comes home with at least one book for young people. Her day is incomplete without poetry and tea.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our April Menu.

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world thoughtful and poetic.

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Join the Club

Join the poetry club, when you become a subscriber to Every Day Poems ✨

Now a Graphic Novel!

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

Your Comments

  • Poet-a-Day: Meet Jim Kacian | Tweetspeak Poetry on September Beats: Allen Ginsberg
  • Poet-a-Day: Meet Jim Kacian | Tweetspeak Poetry on September Beats: Jack Kerouac
  • Richard Pierce on Poet-a-Day: Meet Richard Pierce
  • Megan Willome on Poet-a-Day: Meet Richard Pierce

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

How to Write Poetry

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

Free Printable Poet Bios

Browse all poet bios now

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • Generous-Annual Theme 2021
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • How to Write Form Poems-Infographics
  • • Poetry Club Tea Date
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Best Love Poetry
  • • Book Club
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Literary Analysis
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • VerseWrights Journal
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library
  • • 50 States Projects

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Give the Gift of Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2021 Tweetspeak Poetry · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · FAQ & Disclosure