The lyric essay escapes its hermit crab shell to wander free
henever I teach my course The Lyric Essay, I start with Stephen Dunn’s “Little Essay on Form.” A single line—“We build the corral as we reinvent the horse”—makes up the entire piece and says it all, exemplifying what can be the reciprocal nature of form and content in creative nonfiction. I came across it in 2000, in an issue of devoted to the lyric essay, and the image has stayed with me ever since, that shape-shifting horse forever morphing in my imagination.
