Sentimentality shouldn’t be a four-letter word. Rachel Zucker’s microessay, published online by Evening Will Come, proves this. Zucker is in dialogue with her poetry and books, her latest being a poemic (co-written with Arielle Greenberg), Home/Birth, which examines the business of birthing through personal accounts, newspaper articles, and statistics. It is heartbreaking. Zucker’s notes on sentimentality reminded me that the goal should be to write the true, to fight for honesty, to strike a match to keep our stories alive. Despite the harsh reputation sentimentality has gotten, despite it maybe not being au courant (was it ever?), Zucker asks us to push for it, to demand it, because, dammit, we’re human. We need it.
Best 2011 Microessay on Poetry
Poet Rachel Zucker asks us to demand sentimentality. Because we’re human, dammit.
Photograph via via Flickr by Lincoln Stein.
At Guernica, we’ve spent the last 15 years producing uncompromising journalism.
More than 80% of our finances come from readers like you. And we’re constantly working to produce a magazine that deserves you—a magazine that is a platform for ideas fostering justice, equality, and civic action.
If you value Guernica’s role in this era of obfuscation, please donate.
Help us stay in the fight by giving here.
