An old story doesn’t open
The ears as a New one does.²
Long before we write stories—
We Listen for stories …³
The stories don’t kill us but
We’d Die if we didn’t tell them to you!⁴
Our Work: to do more than to reproduce
The toxic stories I inherited and learned.⁵
There are stories that are past telling …⁶
How do we tell a shattered story?
By slowly becoming Everybody—
No: by slowly becoming Everything!⁷
There’s One Story and one story only:⁸
A Confused Tale told by too many people—⁹
They all say the same story, and none tell ours!¹⁰
¹ Homer tr. Samuel Butler, The Odyssey
² Somalian proverb
³ Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginning
⁴ Dunya Mikhail, Tablets IV
⁵ José Olivarez, Ars Poetica
⁶ Erika Meitner, HolyMolyLand
⁷ Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
⁸ Robert Graves, To Juan at the Winter Solstice
⁹ Agatha Christie, N or M?
¹⁰ Solmaz Sharif, Reaching Guantánamo