Kathleen Dean Moore- Muskgrass Chora
Dinty Moore- Son of Mr. Green Jeans
I picked this Moore essay because I'm pretty sure he's an OU faculty member. His structure of the essay was pretty unique: A chronicle of fatherhood, sorted alphabetically. It gives him free reign to make some scattered connections and self reference within the essay. I also think the structure speaks to the impossible alchemy of fatherhood; there's no way that you can tie it together smoothly. I actually think this is a really similar technique to what I used in my "Don't say this wasn't intimate" essay, a number of interspersed and overlaying thoughts that craft a strong (if somewhat abstract) narrative.
Moore draws from a number of sources that inspire him: the dream American family of old television, clean and pristine, a number of different animals, and his own relationship with his father and inherited biology.
He makes a really interesting connection between the titular Mr. Grean Jeans, a father on the show Captain Kangaroo, and an entry titled "Green Genes" about his Irish roots. His Green Genes didn't give him Green Jeans, but they gave him substance control issues, "a facility with words," and some strong hesitations about fatherhood.
There's a (happy?) twist near the end that was set up by the format. At times funny, scientific, and wistful, this is probably worth a read.
This definitely sounds interesting. Yeah he is the head of the creative writing department I think. I really like the idea of writing these things alphabetically- you're right something like that is sporadic and probably hard to organize and with my super OCD ways I would probably choose that as well.
ReplyDeleteSounds like he really went to town with digression in this one, something I tend to do... I'll give it a read.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very interesting! I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Moore for a learning community assignment last semester, and he was - at the time - working on a collection of essays that experiment with form. He mentioned that one of the essays was entirely composed of Facebook status updates, which I thought was an innovative idea. It sounds like this essay has a very unique form too, so I'll have to check it out!
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteThree things. One, I'm glad you're seeing connections between what you're reading and what you're writing.
Two: Good phrase on alchemy of fatherhood, but "tying together" mixes that metaphor. Stick with your metaphors!
Three, here's a related video on fatherhood from D. Moore.
http://dintywmoore.com/2012/news-events/new-video-essay-at-triquarterly/
DW