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Making the Tongue Dry
In this collection of lyric essays, which Erin Jones calls “beautiful and haunting,” Jen Soriano tackles chronic pain, climate change, toxic masculinity and the atomic bomb. Using personal stories as a window into big ideas, Soriano dissects destructive systems while asking readers to question our individual roles in maintaining them. Each essay is a study in experimentation with creative nonfiction form; Soriano blends poetry and prose and plays with structure, such that form follows meaning, and meaning is deepened by the spatial arrangement of words on the page.
Making the Tongue Dry includes the following essays:
•“A Brief History of Her Pain,” a nonlinear timeline of misdiagnosis of women’s illness from ancient times to today, including vignettes and stylized medical records from the author’s own struggles with chronic pain
•“Making the Tongue Dry,” a play on Ovid’s Metamorphoses told in mini-epic form, this essay is an origin story about the global climate crisis and its connections to austerity and extractive capitalism
•“Unbroken Water,” a reflection on the values by which we organize society, this essay recounts the story of an indigenous people’s festival in the Philippines, and asks whether we will choose interdependence and communalism over the individualism and authoritarianism that have led to a new era of creeping fascism across the globe
•“Razing Boys,” inspired by Carolyn Fourché’s “The Colonel,” this prose poem in the form of a newspaper article is a snapshot of one moment in the lives of young boys, told from Soriano’s perspective as the mother of a toddler son
•“War-Fire,” a cinematographic look at the intergenerational transmission of trauma, this essay focuses on the author and her grandfather, who was a prisoner of war during World War II
•“Blow,” an essay in the form of an atomic explosion with impacts radiating out from a nuclear core, this piece explores how even the most innocent among us are implicated in larger cycles of destruction, regeneration and endurance
Making the Tongue Dry is an important collection for lyric essay lovers and teachers alike, and is a vibrant experience of what Khadija Queen calls “deep complexities, sensitively captured.”
Making the Tongue Dry includes the following essays:
•“A Brief History of Her Pain,” a nonlinear timeline of misdiagnosis of women’s illness from ancient times to today, including vignettes and stylized medical records from the author’s own struggles with chronic pain
•“Making the Tongue Dry,” a play on Ovid’s Metamorphoses told in mini-epic form, this essay is an origin story about the global climate crisis and its connections to austerity and extractive capitalism
•“Unbroken Water,” a reflection on the values by which we organize society, this essay recounts the story of an indigenous people’s festival in the Philippines, and asks whether we will choose interdependence and communalism over the individualism and authoritarianism that have led to a new era of creeping fascism across the globe
•“Razing Boys,” inspired by Carolyn Fourché’s “The Colonel,” this prose poem in the form of a newspaper article is a snapshot of one moment in the lives of young boys, told from Soriano’s perspective as the mother of a toddler son
•“War-Fire,” a cinematographic look at the intergenerational transmission of trauma, this essay focuses on the author and her grandfather, who was a prisoner of war during World War II
•“Blow,” an essay in the form of an atomic explosion with impacts radiating out from a nuclear core, this piece explores how even the most innocent among us are implicated in larger cycles of destruction, regeneration and endurance
Making the Tongue Dry is an important collection for lyric essay lovers and teachers alike, and is a vibrant experience of what Khadija Queen calls “deep complexities, sensitively captured.”
- GenresEssays
52 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 30, 2020
1 person is currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Jen Soriano
3 books46 followersJen Soriano was an avid reader before she became a writer. Raised on Ramona Quimby and Anne of Greene Gables, she was later introduced to Maxine Hong Kingston, James Baldwin, N. Scott Momaday, and James Joyce. Now Jen has a reading "to-do" list that is 34 pages long. Jen divides her time between social justice movement-building and writing essays and performance poetry at the intersections of race, gender, trauma, health, colonization, and power.
Melissa Febos has called Jen's work "luminous" and chose her essay "Unbroken Water" as winner of the 2019 Penelope C. Niven Prize. Aisha Sabatini-Sloan chose her essay "War-Fire" as winner of the 2019 Fugue Prose Prize, calling her work "vivid" and "cinematic". Jen is a 2019-2020 Hugo House Fellow and Jack Jones Yi Dae Up Fellow, and received her MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop.
Her chapbook Making the Tongue Dry was a finalist in the Newfound, Cutbank and Gazing Grain Press chapbook competitions. Handbound limited editions of the book were published by the Platform Review Chapbook Series of Arts by the People in 2019 and 2020. Jen is currently at work on a memoir about historical trauma and the neuroscience of healing.
Melissa Febos has called Jen's work "luminous" and chose her essay "Unbroken Water" as winner of the 2019 Penelope C. Niven Prize. Aisha Sabatini-Sloan chose her essay "War-Fire" as winner of the 2019 Fugue Prose Prize, calling her work "vivid" and "cinematic". Jen is a 2019-2020 Hugo House Fellow and Jack Jones Yi Dae Up Fellow, and received her MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop.
Her chapbook Making the Tongue Dry was a finalist in the Newfound, Cutbank and Gazing Grain Press chapbook competitions. Handbound limited editions of the book were published by the Platform Review Chapbook Series of Arts by the People in 2019 and 2020. Jen is currently at work on a memoir about historical trauma and the neuroscience of healing.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2020
Beautiful collection of prose that wind together generations, pain, and makes room for healing. Soriano is an artist of describing the lands of her ancestors, their stories and their impact carried in her genes.
February 20, 2020
In her chapbook "Making the Tongue Dry," writer Jen Soriano shows her incredible breadth of range in creative nonfiction. The outstanding first essay in this chapbook, "A Brief History of Her Pain," weaves together a walloping personal narrative of enduring chronic pain, including insufficient medical and mental health care, with impressive scholarship on the history of women and their illnesses.
"Razing Boys," another essay, is a sharp, keenly observed piece of flash nonfiction, describing how the roots of toxic masculinity take hold within the youngest of boys. Soriano chooses each word carefully, starting this astonishing piece with the precision of "They come like a murder of crows."
One of my favorite essays in this chapbook is "War-Fire," in which Soriano considers the disconnect between her parents' generation's view of the Philippines' colonization and her own critical reckoning with her ancestors' pain. Once again, she brings in impressive research, from neuroscience to oral history to philosophy, to make sense of the repercussions of national trauma on the lives of individuals.
"Making the Tongue Dry" is a limited-run of 100 published by Arts By the People through its Platform Review program. It's already sold out, but hopefully this is an indication of this brilliant writer's potential as she pens her book-length memoir. If you can get your hands on a copy of "Making the Tongue Dry" in the meantime, it is well worth a careful, thoughtful read.
"Razing Boys," another essay, is a sharp, keenly observed piece of flash nonfiction, describing how the roots of toxic masculinity take hold within the youngest of boys. Soriano chooses each word carefully, starting this astonishing piece with the precision of "They come like a murder of crows."
One of my favorite essays in this chapbook is "War-Fire," in which Soriano considers the disconnect between her parents' generation's view of the Philippines' colonization and her own critical reckoning with her ancestors' pain. Once again, she brings in impressive research, from neuroscience to oral history to philosophy, to make sense of the repercussions of national trauma on the lives of individuals.
"Making the Tongue Dry" is a limited-run of 100 published by Arts By the People through its Platform Review program. It's already sold out, but hopefully this is an indication of this brilliant writer's potential as she pens her book-length memoir. If you can get your hands on a copy of "Making the Tongue Dry" in the meantime, it is well worth a careful, thoughtful read.
June 10, 2022
the first lyric essay is the best best best best essay i've ever read
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews