Meg's Musings

I sometimes wonder if the reason many of my male students have a hard time with personal narrative, vignettes and other creative writing is that those genres require a level of self exposure general essays and expository writing do not. What I’m talking about is guys being disconnected from their emotions. They can tell me the emotion they felt or the situation they were in, but it is much rarer for them to be able to articulate both and the connection between them.

I understand this better now that I’ve taught a few years and spent time developing emotional depth with David (who is not naturally a man who reflects on his emotional state). There’s this hang time (I’m dating a researcher and a scientist. Cat-like reflexes are not his thing. Deliberate decisions are.) and then he pops up with a triple score word that pinpoints it precisely. We’ve worked up to this.

I can only think of a couple of guys who regularly take their emotional temperature and respond accordingly to sadness, anger, overwhelming joy, grief, frustration, confusion, etc. Most of those are just taken for confusion. It surprises me when I ask the men in my life how they’re doing the varied responses I get. I rephrase and ask how they’re feeling….well, some come up with a health related answer, but the rest seem to enjoy it. I’m thinking mostly of my dad, brother and former neighbor in that second category. I’m not one to casually bring it up in ordinary conversation—I’m a little more aware of cultural norms than that. Just a little though.

I’m busily handing back vignette anthologies. Vignettes are short stories from life that are based on a relativly small slice of time, impact that reader's emotional in some way and are kind of a cross between a short story and a poem--mmuch imagery and figurative language. Some of the best writing I got was from guys. But they didn’t choose to share it aloud when the opportunity presented itself. Some of the worst was from guys. They told stories, but there was no compelling emotion written into them. They listed ideas but refused to try to move deeper. I was sad. I don’t know if they get what I was talking about or if they just couldn’t deliver or just wouldn’t deliver. It made me sad.

posted by Me @ 12:57