Augustus Johnson

Professor Kirsten Ogden

English 1A – Section 73017

October 4 2015

Finding my Authentic Voice

     As I laid awake last night questions, kept popping into my head. How do I write more than 668 words? What did Zherui Cao mean when she said I needed a clearer thesis and better topic sentences? How could I, as she suggests, organize my thoughts better? More importantly, what was the purpose of all those readings and discussions? It hit me. My Mr. Miyake moment. Wax on, wax off. The readings and discussion responses were my tools. With these tools I could find the purpose and meaning of my authentic voice and how to use it. The authentic voice are my values, opinions, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses and experiences and I must understand who I am in order to develop it.

     The authentic voice is uniquely ours. We are the only ones who can express our feelings and observations. As Mary Piper, puts it authentic voice is the “library of self” (46). She goes on to add, “Voice is everything we are, all that we have observed, the emotional chords that are uniquely ours--- all of our strengths expressed in the words that best reflects us” (46). She continues to describes authentic voice as the “essence of self, distilled and offered in service to the world” (46).

     There are many reasons why an authentic voice is important. One reason your voice is necessary is that it fulfills our innate need to communicate. It is also necessary for how we view ourselves. Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie describes her exposure to literature as a child growing up in Nigeria. Since the only books available to her were of British or American origin, when she learned to write, all her characters were “white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples” (0:38). The effects on her could have resulted in a lack of self-esteem. Fortunately she discovered the existence of African writers Chinua Achebe and Camera Layer, and she was able gain a valuable perspective on literature and her self-image. Her experiences was one reasons for her oratory “The Danger of a Single Story “. Other reasons why an authentic voice is important include using it to clarify stereotypes and to mitigating the power of one person or institute over another. Adichie describes  power as the “Ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person” (10.11). To paraphrase Adichie, our voice is necessary to complete our story. Piper supplies two more reasons why an authentic voice is important. The first is that it is our “gift to the world” (46) and the second is that it is our way to effect change.

     Authentic voices can take many forms, but all authentic voices are meant to effect change. Authentic voice can be active to inspire people to think, to question and to  act upon issues. It can also be passive as in propaganda, which encourages people to accept or agree with the writer’s intent. Authentic voice can take the form of song like the protest songs of the sixties, speeches like Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address , films, like Morgan Spurlock’s, Super Size Me , poetry like Walt Whitman’s, “I Hear America Singing “ or essays like Anne Frank’s, “Give”.

     In developing an authentic voice one must “Know Thyself “ (33). Mary Piper used three words, I Am From, (33) to assist refugees in acclimating themselves to a new country. These three words can be used to allow people to reflect upon their past, where they have been, what they ate and what their beliefs are. To quote Mary Piper, “Our writing comes from our being. The deeper we explore our souls, the deeper and therefore richer will be our writing.” (35). Carefully observing our surroundings and keeping track of those observations is another key to developing our authentic voice. Annie Dillard expresses the importance of using all of your senses to track your observations in her essay “Seeing” (105). In the essay you can hear the “land turtle on the bank, startled, hissed the air from its lungs,” (108). You can see the “round ripples rolling close together from a blackened center” (109) and feel the chill as the author , “walked home in a shivering daze,” (109). Joan Didion emphasizes the utility of keeping a notebook of observations to evoke memories of the past in developing an authentic voice. She uses a note about an insignificant event, the observation of a “woman in a dirty crepe-de-Chine wrapper in a Wilmington bar,” (109), as a bridge to more important memory of herself in a “plaid silk dress,” (109). Mary Piper Suggests several more techniques to assist you in finding your authentic voice. One is to write down what you say. Study your writings and try to mate what you say to how you write. She suggests generating three of four metaphors a day, to “develop a sense for what moves you toward the metaphorical” (49). She also mirrors Didion’s and Dillard’s method of careful observation.

     Once you’ve found your authentic voice you can use it to connect effectively with your audience. Piper uses it, juxtaposition, the use of two events closely spaced in time or place, to potentially “lead us to profound essay”  (206). She gives the example of a friend at the airport watching a broadcast of the devastating New Orleans floods while a “group of teenage girls on their way to a cheerleading contest were laughing and practicing their cheers,” (206), in front of the screen as a taste of juxtaposition. She also suggested letting small events define a much larger and more complex issues. She mentions how the event of a “pop bottle washed up on a beach can lead to a discussion of pollution in the ocean and the death of coral reefs and fish species.” (208)

     You may face demons when using your authentic voice. You may be concerned about whether your voice will be heard or you may feel that you are inadequate. You may face pressures of having to conform to social ideal about how to use your voice as Min-Zhan Lu did as a young student in socialist China. She had to separate the boundaries between her bourgeois English she used at home and the state sponsored English she used at school. She found it it impossible to keep the two voices from blending and as she states in her essay “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”, “But I could not use the interaction comfortably and constructively. Both my parents and my teachers had implied that my job was to prevent that interaction from happening. My sense of having failed to accomplish what they taught silenced me.”  (249). You may even have issues about which dialect to use as Gloria Anzaldua had. In her essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (22), she relates a different problem with boundaries. Because Chicanos are a heterogeneous people, she had to deal with the multiple languages and the boundaries they create. The list of dialects are;

1. Standard English
2. Working class and slang English
3. Standard Spanish
4. Standard Mexican Spanish
5. North Mexican Spanish dialect
6. Chicano Spanish
7. Tex-Max
8. Pacheco

She states, “Yet the struggle of identities continues, the struggle of borders is our reality still.” (31).

You may simply have the problem of starting to write. Anne Lamont in “Shitty First Drafts” (229) has a good suggestion of how to handle your fears and self-loathing, just pick up those squeaky little “mouse people,” (231) and “drop them into mason jar” (231). Then “put the lid on,” (231) and turn the volume all the way down. Another way to cope with your demons is to try freewriting or desperation writing. Freewriting is the act of writing everything that pops into your head without hesitation or editing. Freewriting is a great way of generating your concerns and your ideas. Desperation writing is similar to freewriting except as Peter Elbow puts it, “Try simply to steer your mind in the direction or general vicinity of the thing you are trying to write about and start writing and keep writing .” (131). If all else fails, write.

     An authentic voice is the sum of your hopes, desires, plusses, minuses values and experiences. It is your history, your present and your future. To find your authentic voice you must delve into your past and find what makes you you. Then you must share your voice with world to complete your picture and eradicate any misconceptions and stereotypes about you and your world. Mary Piper states “With inner clarity, we present readers with reflective, honest work,” (35) that is the purpose of finding your authentic voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Adichie, Chiamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story”, 0:38,10:!!

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Readings for Revolutionary Writing (2013): 22,31.

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Didion, Joan. “On Keeping a Notebook.” Readings for Revolutionary Writing (2013): 109.

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Dillard, Anne. “Seeing.”  Readings for Revolutionary Writers (2013): 105, 108, 109

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Elbow, Peter. “Desperation Writing.” Readings for Revolutionary Writing (2013): 131

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Elbow, Peter.  “Freewriting.”     Readings for Revolutionary Writing (2013): 134

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Lamont, Anne. “Shifty First Drafts.” Readings for Revolutionary Writers (2013): 229, 231

     Bedford/St. Martin’s

Piper, Mary. “Writing to Connect”, “Know Thyself”, “What You Alone Can Say”, “Diving In--- Getting Started.” Writing to Change the World (2006): 33,35,46,45,49,206,208,237,249

The Berkley Publishing Group

 

 

 

I used the first draft for ideas. I took Zherui suggestions about clearer topic sentences and the use of Authentic Voice to heart and tried to focus my topics. I took your suggestion and got rid of my first paragraph and tried to re-focus my thesis. Most of all I demolished my “Shifty First Draft”.