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Zuihitsu [1]

Creative Nonfiction [2]
7.25.19

“Its freedom lies in fragmentation and even welcomed chaos. The embrace of intended disorganization felt right to me,” says Tina Chang in a Q&A [3] with Poets & Writers about using the zuihitsu form in her third poetry collection, Hybrida (Norton, 2019). The zuihitsu is a Japanese form and genre comparable to the lyric essay comprised of casual, loosely connected fragments and ideas, often in haphazard order, such as in Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book. Write a zuihitsu-inspired essay, collecting a dozen or so random thoughts and personal notes about your surroundings, and incorporating text fragments, observations, and lists.


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/zuihitsu

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/zuihitsu [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/creativenonfiction [3] https://www.pw.org/content/mother_language_a_qa_with_tina_chang