This week I visited a college creative writing class to talk about food writing and this story about women who remember their dead through cooking. The discussion was lovely and thoughtful; the students asked good questions and we eventually came around to talking about my favorite poet and essayist, Saint Mary Karr. (She’d hate that I said “saint;” her preferred term is “black-belt sinner.”)
Anyway, Karr coined the term “sacred carnality” as a reminder to writers that physical, embodied details are essential for recreating an experience with words. “By carnal, I mean, Can you apprehend it through the five senses?” As writers, we want to write about emotions or experiences—grief, love, the ineffable—that are difficult to capture in language without resorting to cliche. And the way to do that, often, is by drilling down into sensory, embodied details. The way Karr employs sacred carnality can be traced to her Catholic theology, but I think it’s applicable for any writer who wants to draw near to mystery using language.
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