popculturAL: 5 random six-word memoirs that serve as reasons you should read this book

Friday, 16 December 2011

5 random six-word memoirs that serve as reasons you should read this book

List by Tosca

"Your heart is my piñata."
- Chuck Palahniuk

Love, as in love for self, family and friends, is a kind of love I understand, and have felt. The happy ever after kind, though, that I don't know, have never felt, do not understand. It's all a bit of a curiosity to me. Twice in my life I considered marriage. Twice in my life I re-considered it. Neither time was I heartbroken or upset. Truth be told, I've been more upset over a melted piece of chocolate. And I'm terribly aware of how awful that sounds. If I'd had to write a six-word memoir about it, I'm certain it would have been an unfeeling and flat piece of text. Without emotion, context or a sense of history. Luckily, I've never had to do so because I'm quite sure it wouldn't even have come close to Smith Magazine's Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak : By Writers Famous and Obscure. This time around, Fershleiser and Smith have compiled a collection of mini-sagas that explore the highs and lows of love and heartbreak. Six words can say so much. The right six words, though, convey a sense of time, history, emotion and context. Truly. This particular collection is insightful, clever, full of hope and despair, jaded and innocent and all points in between. It's hard to choose just 5 six-word memoirs that moved me (seriously, crying on the bus is becoming such a habit these days, and thank you to the elderly gentleman who offered me tissues), so I've selected a random 5 instead that, I hope, cover the spectrum.

What would your six-word memoir for love and/or heartbreak be?

More in this vein:

Not Quite What I Was Planning - In 2006, "SMITH" Magazine decided to give people the opportunity to answer a Hemingway inspired challenge: What would a six-word memoir look like? Within weeks, submissions were coming in by the thousands. This title presents a glorious mishmash of these and myriad other voices.

It all changed in an instant : more six-word memoirs by writers famous & obscure - The New York Times bestseller 'Not Quite What I Was Planning' made six-word memoirs an international phenomenon, as people around the world shared their true tales of romance, parenthood, friendship, ambition, failure haircuts and french fries.

I Can't Keep My Own Secrets : Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous and Obscure - This is a book with nearly 800 authors (all aged thirteen to nineteen) and 800 characters (all real, as far as we know) and 800 stories (which can be read in any order). What every story has in common is that each was written about the author's own life, and that each is the exact same length: six words.