Literature, writing and the world of academia has an interesting relationship with creativity and creative work. It is easy to pass off a piece of poetry or creative prose as fluffy and frivolous, deeming it less academic and less worthy of study or analysis. It is easy to say that certain pieces of writing are too personal in regard to the author and to biased in regard to the rest of the world. Since when was the bar set so high that every piece of writing that comes from underneath the pen of an author must be revolutionary?

In my years of studying literature and writing creatively, I’ve gone back and forth in how I view creative contributions to literature – because words and language are not static, and neither is the way that a person thinks about these things. The first-person essay strikes my interest.

As a student in the English department, my colleagues and I discussed at length what it means for a text to be “worthy” of literary analysis. We attempted to work together to define the parameters of literary study when those lines are hard to see or without existence. Defining the limit to which a piece of writing does not deserve literary analysis does not do our society or culture any justices.

There is a power behind the first-person perspective that literary analysis tends to dismiss. When a writer reaches out to their reader to share their experience, they craft community out of vulnerability, casting a line of hope to those who share those experiences.

I can write a piece about my experiences and blend it with commentary of the world around me. I can write a piece about my personal battles and find that reader to let them know that they aren't alone. This isn’t new.

Sherman Alexie does this. Emily Dickinson does this. Martin Luther King Jr. does this.

From a young age, I obsessed over words and books and the way they can take you just far enough away from reality in order to have greater insight on the world around you. When I was 16, my English teacher opened my eyes to the ways literary techniques can help push a person’s writing into the realm in which it starts to move society beyond the page.

In recent moments, I’ve explored the first-person essay – not in attempt to write the most revolutionary piece of my time, but to get my experiences down on paper for generations to follow, to observe. I want to blend the vulnerability of the first-person essay with social and political commentary. I’ve learned from feminists before me about the power of the first-person essay. Authors like Virginia Woolf, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood share their experiences in their text, and weave them with the complex dimensions that help explain a person.

In an introduction written for her book “Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing,” Margaret Atwood gives us insight into her thought process, her preparation for giving a series of six speeches at the University of Cambridge. The speeches she gave at the University of Cambridge in 2000 eventually became the book for which she is introducing. Atwood explains that the University of Cambridge invited her to speak to address a very broadly painted theme: writing and being a writer. Atwood speaks directly to the reader from the first-person perspective about her experience. Her introduction is informal; she jokes with the reader and reminisces on the feeling of being a young writer. Atwood brings her own experiences with writing to set up her insight into the complexities of the world of writing. When reading the chapters that make up her book, Atwood reminds you of her introduction and writes from the first-person perspective; the speeches and chapters to come from them blends the creative, first-person perspective with commentary and lessons on writing.

In writing, with literature, who are we to decide a text is or isn’t worth it?