Moving Water, Tucson (practice letter)

Dear Peggy,

Your essay is about a flood, but it's really about a shared experience of childhood. It's about "the flash flood inside us" (20). It's about the suspense and every one witnessesing the risk one child took and wishing they were him until it turns out badly.

The piece is extrememly short, which makes the story focus on speed, and the syntax helps the reader along and making the sentences rush out of their mouth like water. This is extremely effective and gives the piece a good rhythm.

The use of the collective we really shows that this is a shared experience. That the flood that is metaphor for childhood and the desire to be adventurous is not only within the boy on the piece of plywood it's a shared value.

The end of the essay is left completely open. It cuts off befre we find out what happened to the boy. Usually, I would say I want to know more. However, I think that it works in this essay. This is just a little piece of these kids lives, and they will go on despite the fate of the boy. It's a piece about the experience. It's not about what actually happened. It's about a feeling not the facts. I think this works well.

Bullet in My Neck

The essay Bullet in My Neck really caught me with its bazaar action and conflicting reality. The idea that memory and experience are personal even in shared experiences is interesting. When details happen so fast, people interpret them differently. I believe that shock also alters memory as well as perception of what is happening in the moment.

While this essay had deep undertones of guilt, the narrator says he doesn't blame anyone for what happened, but acknowledges that if anything had changed it would be different. I enjoyed the analysis of one moment that altered a life.

Scott Russell Sanders

Scott Ruseell Sanders explains that the reader should respond to an essay as if they are reading to a friend "caught up in rapturous monologue" (First Person, 35) and I believe he achieves this kind of intimacy in the essay Under the Influence. Sanders is uncensored in terms of honesty in this piece. He has no concern about who may be reading his deepest secrets as long as they understand his concerns and relate in some way. It almost reades like a laundry list of things that happened to lead him to his conclusion, not unline a friendly rant in a time of stress. Although his father has died, these feelings of concern and anger come back year after year. He calls them perenial.

However, this rant is not simply diatribe. He is taking us on a journey with the idea that we too may benefit from his hardships. He writes, "I choose to write about my experience not because ti is mine but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass," (First Person, 38) when talking about his craft. He takes this point literally in Under the Influence by mentioning how common alcoholism is hinting that he is not the only one with this experience. However, everyone can relate to his ideas despite their situations. The father/son or mother/daughter relationship is something everyone can relate to. You may reject everything a parent has done, yet you share blood. You are linked to them eternally, and find little bits of them in you; and in your children; and in your childrens' children.

Sanders is definately not hiding behind anything in his essays. He even admits that he has been hiding this for years, but decides to explore his feelings so that he can deal with them. This shows that he really does believe the essay is an "arrogant form" (First person 31) and he treats it as such.

He also embraces the first person as he says you should. I like the analogy he makes about standing on a soapbox. He does this by saying 'This is me. Take it or leave it.' I also like that he admits that he has nothing to stand on. He says he is standing on air. I like this concept in the personal essay. All you have to stand on to make a point is memory and mind. It's up to you to make them strong enough to support your voice.