We see first person POV everywhere these days. Think about it: there are more avenues than ever to share our personal experiences in the world. Here on Substack, a lot of us are leading with “I,” as we do on social media. It can be mightily self-absorbed of us, how much we talk from this perspective (as I’m learning in my union work, the collective “we” slips into my language a lot more than it used to), but it is also a genuinely vulnerable and open POV.
The gift of another person’s first person perspective can be very powerful. It’s one reason I love audiobook memoirs - it’s often read by the writer, who is usually speaking from their own perspective and using “I.” They are intimately and directly telling me their stories. My best example of this is “Eat, Pray Love,” which I listened to during a short period where I drove 12 hours a day for work. I don’t know if I would’ve taken the time to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book and I suspect I might’ve disliked her as a narrator if I hadn’t had the double wallop of a first person perspective delivered directly by the writer, in her actual voice. It was like she was speaking directly to me.
Of course, all of us have enormous blindspots when it comes to our own motivations, desires and histories, so we are not entirely reliable narrators. And this can be used particularly well in fiction.
Today, however, I’m going to share two nonfiction examples of first person POV, because I’m realizing that I don’t often use first person in fiction. I use it in my novel The Winter Circus (which we’ll talk about in a future newsletter, because it’s complicated and it’s not published yet), but I don’t think I have any published fiction using first person POV.
I’ve been debating the order to share these two pieces because they’re connected. One is mentioned in the other, so perhaps I’ll begin there.
In 2012, my 225 Magazine editor assigned me a book review of the French artist Gersin’s published sketchbook called New Orleans Sojourn. Some of my most memorable pieces for 225 were assignments, because I had to figure out how to write about an artist’s sketchbook, a cookbook and a dictionary. Most of my book pieces weren’t about me, even though reviews are so subjective, so I had to practice the more journalistic art of keeping the “I” out of my reviews. How do you talk about your thoughts about something without talking about yourself, where you are in your life?
Sometimes, it was just impossible, and that made a review really special. In the case of Gersin, he agreed to meet me at a coffeeshop I loved, but insisted on sketching me while I interviewed him. Here’s a section mid-way through the review, where I talk about the interview, being sketched, Gersin’s process:
I agree with a statement of Susan Larson’s during their WWNO interview, that he somehow captures the light in New Orleans. He shows me a portrait of Susan at the microphone and I tell him he got her smile right. He says casually, “I use coffee now, since New Orleans,” and pulls a small glass jar of coffee from his bag, placing it on the crowded table. I ask him if he will draw something new for me so I can observe his process. He agrees and looks around the shop, at the framed photographs for sale on the walls. His eyes fall on me. “I will draw you.”
We move into a sunny alcove, with three enormous windows instead of walls. I sit in front of one window, St. Charles Avenue behind me, and Gersin studies me for a long time without saying anything. Sensing my discomfort, he says jokingly, “You can’t escape. I am never finished drawing. I am studying. It’s not in your hands; I’m sorry.”
While discussing my piece with my editor, I asked if we could include the portrait Gersin made of me and Gersin was kind enough to send it. Sadly, the piece on the website doesn’t have the images that accompanied it originally, but I hope you’ll read the whole thing.
But you do need to see Gersin’s portrait of me, which is still on my fairly defunct blog’s bio page, because I later wrote about it in a personal essay, Tango Face, that won the Faulkner Wisdom Competition’s essay category in 2012. It was published in a massive digital edition of The Double Dealer, but I haven’t been able to find it online to share with y’all. Because this and other writing of mine has been increasingly difficult to find online 10+ years later, I actually created a limited-edition nonfiction chapbook in 2020. I sent it to the 50 people who financially contributed to a fund that allowed me to attend a writing residency at Soaring Gardens in 2014.
I’ll share just a few sections from that essay here, to give you an idea of how the first person is used, how incredibly intimate this POV can be.
The opening of the essay starts with an omniscient paragraph and the second begins the first person POV.
When people think of tango, they tend to think of one pose: arms clasped and held out, bodies facing each other and moving side by side. A rose clasped in the teeth. They think of a certain face, a serious and imperious way of holding the head, an intense, unyielding gaze.
The first time I danced with some male beginners, I was impressed, intimidated and yes, amused, at their theatrically exaggerated, but courageous, adoption of the tango face. I didn’t think I could be so brave and I knew I shouldn’t giggle at their attempts, but they looked so charming and so silly.
I proceed to talk about the intimacy of being looked at, but also in looking at others, and the ways this impacted my tango journey, and also my personal journey.
There are patches of the essay where I retreat back towards an omniscient POV, where I move the spotlight away from myself, but then shine it back on myself. I’m only just now, on this read, realizing that I employ multiple POVs in this fairly short essay, as if I couldn’t bear to sustain a first person POV because of how intimate those sections felt for me to share.
But tango begins before the dance, with a subtle yet terribly important gaze I haven’t yet mastered. The cabeceo is an invitation, without words, and involves direct and sustained eye contact, often from across the room. If a leader catches the eye of a follower and nods to the dance floor, he is inviting her to dance. If she maintains the eye contact, smiles, or nods, she has accepted.
This is perfectly elegant in theory, but fraught with peril in practice.
He might have trouble meeting your eye, or you might think he is looking at you, but he is inviting the women behind you. You might not want to dance with him.
Maintaining eye contact to encourage an invitation is the most difficult part for me. I feel desperate and give up, though I’ve been told that it’s fine for a follower to stare at a lead, to ask to be asked, as it were. It is shockingly uncomfortable. In those excruciatingly long seconds of staring, you are stating your desires without words. Admitting that you want something, especially something you might not get, is dangerous.
Now, if you haven’t already clicked on the link to Gersin’s portrait of me, do so now, because I end the essay talking about the experience of sitting for the portrait:
Recently, an artist sketched and painted me in watercolor, which required that he study me intently for an hour. Moreover, I watched him looking at me, taking apart my features and then putting them back together in his sketchbook. His gaze was like a touch, the slip of his brush across the paper and my features, caresses. It was intimate and uncomfortable, intoxicating and strange. I doubt I would’ve been capable of sitting for an artist and being stared at critically, if it weren’t for tango and practicing the cabeceo.
In the portrait, my face is still and stoic, just a tiny sardonic smile turning up the lips in an expression that is unfamiliar to me, but which friends instantly recognize. My gaze is direct and unflinching. My eyes catch yours and hold them.
I’ll wrap up this newsletter here, but I always want to hear your thoughts, so please share them in the comments!