The Literary Sketch

My love affair with the sketch goes back many years to my reading of Adventures in Contentment by David Grayson. At first puzzled by the seeming lack of direction the author took, I suddenly realized the “novel” was a collection of vignettes, or sketches, and each one produced a mood of contentment. I was enthralled with the skill of the author in making each chapter a haven of contentment. From the Adventures, I went on to discover other writers of sketches: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Anthony Trollope to name three.

A sketch is at base a mood evoking descriptive piece of writing. Perhaps the verbal equivalent of the tone poem. A painting in words. One of the best discussions of the form I’ve found is in a blog post from 2007 on the Siris blog, simply entitled “Literary Sketch”. Do check it out.

The sketch has no plot to it, although there may be movement in the piece. Through the description of the scene, a mood is evoked and that is its strength: to use the power of words to evoke feeling and to perhaps stir us to our very core.

There is a Japanese literary form developed by Basho called haibun, a linking form of prose and haiku, which is very similar to the sketch. Basho composed his travel journals in haibun, as well as writing stand alone atmospheric pieces and essays in the form. I love haibun. It is a brilliant dance of prose and poetry.

If you haven’t tried the sketch, either writing one or reading one, I encourage you to do so. A well written sketch is prose poetry at its finest.

[Originally published 13 January 2015 on www.cwhawes.com.]