An Old Story doesn’t Open
The Ears as a New one does²
There’s One Story and One Story only³
A Confused Tale told by too many people⁴
They all say the Same Story, and None tell Ours⁵
Long before I Write Stories – I Listen for Stories⁶
My Work: to do More than to Reproduce
The Toxic Stories I inherited and learned⁷
There are Stories that are Past Telling⁸
How do I tell a Shattered Story? By
Slowly becoming Everybody – No:
By Slowly becoming Everything⁹
The Stories don’t Kill me but I’d
Die if I didn’t Tell them to you¹⁰
¹ Homer tr. Samuel Butler, The Odyssey
² Somalian proverb
³ Robert Graves, To Juan at the Winter Solstice
⁴ Agatha Christie, N or M?
⁵ Solmaz Sharif, Reaching Guantánamo
⁶ Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginning
⁷ José Olivarez, Ars Poetica
⁸ Erika Meitner, HolyMolyLand
⁹ Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
¹⁰ Dunya Mikhail, Tablets IV