From the Greek lyre," a lyric poem expresses a writer's thoughts and feelings through the intimacy of the first-person narrator, evoking a strong emotional reaction in the audience. Professor Cognard-Black demonstrates the similarities between a lyric poem and a lyric essay and shares a moving example of a lyric piece written by one of her own students that uses memory fragments and figurative language to synthesize experience into a kind of mosaic. A lyric essay does not focus on telling a chronological story, but instead is meant to share, vividly, the impressions that create a mood or an idea."