The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith

Example 2.35: Student example

i come to You

You have me under

control

i do not live a day without

Yo u

Yo u

reign as master and i

Your slave

You look at me

i desire Your daily assessment

Your gaze seizes

me

I bare myself before You

You inspect

me

You have me under

control

MIRRORYou reign as MASTER

and i your slave

‘Mirror’ (Tan 1998)

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we have explored how changes to language cause shifts in
genre. We have moved not only between prose and poetry, but also between
generic modes such as satire and surrealism. This has given us a sense of the
flexibility of genre, and the way that exciting writing often pushes produc-
tively at its edges. In fact turning genre on its head is a major experimental
strategy, and one of the ways in which our writing can question how we
represent the world around and within us. Genre will therefore be shifted
even further in later chapters. For example, Chapter 5 both delineates and
‘moves’ narrative as a genre; Chapters 7 and 8 explore the redrawing
of generic boundaries in postmodern fiction and poetry; and Chapter 9

46 The Writing Experiment