All right, welcome.
In her essay "Memory and Imagination,"
which she calls her old chestnut as of today,
Patricia Hampl tells the story of learning to play the piano.
She describes the convulsive sneezes
of her teacher, Sister Olive Marie,
the slant of the sunlight through the dust
onto the red Thompson book, and the tortured scales
and arpeggios crashing off piano keys.
Hampl finishes the story and immediately tells the readers
that "in regards to the details, I must admit that I invented.
I told a number of lies."
She didn't say that to be inflammatory
or to condone falsifying, rather to engage
in a necessary discussion about the relationship of memory
to imagination and ultimately to writing.
It was seven years ago, and while Hampl's ideas
have shifted and deepened, her words
revived the long-debated conversation that still ripples
through writing and reading communities
and even through the national news as of late.
With the surging interest in memoir and personal essay,
we see the fierce power of literature
as it riles and rattles classrooms, book clubs, talk
shows, and breakfast conversations.
In the "Memory and Imagination" essay,
Hampl goes on to discuss the mysterious relationship
between images of our remembered experiences,
be they convulsive sneezes or the horrors of Auschwitz,
and the emotion behind those images.
Hampl says, "Stalking that relationship,
seeking the congruence between stored image and hidden
emotion--
that's the real job of memoir."
She says it boldly.
"That's the real job of memoir."
Here, memory meets imagination.
Hampl says that it is not enough to transcribe
an experience, a chunk of history,
but a writer must try to make sense of it,
to transform experience into meaning.
By shaping the personal story and layering it
with reflection, getting as close to the emotional truth
as memory allows, the memoirist creates a work of art
that speaks not only to the self but to the larger
world because, as Hampl says, "I don't write about what I know
but in order to find out what I know."
There we have it--
truth as exploration, writing as articulation
of that exploration.
Hampl tells us if we refuse to do the work of creating
this personal version of the past,
someone else will do it for us, and what is remembered
becomes reality.
Maybe that is why we, in a time of deep political distrust
in what Hampl calls the teetering empire,
look to memoir because we want to understand and remember.
It is a voice like Patricia Hampl's that helps us remember.
Hampl has a stunning list of accomplishments and awards,
both in teaching and writing, including two National
Endowment for the Arts Fellowships,
a Guggenheim, five years of MacArthur Fellowship,
and distinguished visiting professor
awards and honorary doctorates from several colleges.
Having written a dozen books, including
I Could Tell You Stories--
Sojourns in the Land of Memory and Virgin Time
and the forthcoming Blue Arabesque
and Florist's Daughter, plus innumerable essays,
short stories, and poems, Hampl continues
to write while she teaches as a Regents Professor
at the University of Minnesota and travels
across the country and internationally,
giving readings and lectures.
Several of our own graduate students
have worked with her at the Prague Summer Seminar,
and they use words like "tremendous"
and "truly inspiring" to describe
their experiences with Hampl.
Patricia Hampl tackles complicated ideas
about memory, truth, also about family, culture, beauty,
and how to write a good story.
She articulates her thoughts with grace, kindness,
and bold precision.
Tonight, we have the opportunity to hear how
her fiercely smart mind works.
Please welcome, as Fenton says, a lovely person,
a great writer, Patricia Hampl.