Wednesday, May 18, 2005
ALL STORIES ARE TRUE
One hot Minnesota day, in late July, of 1992, writer John Edgar Wideman visited the Twin Cities. I conducted a radio interview with him and went to a raeding of his then newly published book of short stories. We started with a thought expressed in his collection of his short stories, the notion that "all stories are true." A notion he found in an Ibo proverb. "It's a proverb that to me makes a lot of sense," he said, ". . . because the more I write, the less it makes sense to distinguish between what's fictional and what's documentary. I know that it [the proverb] means a lot, but I don't know exactly what it means."
All stories are true. I've been attached to that notion, since that humid day I spent in the company of a man I consider a modern day savant, because there are so many lost and censored stories. Officially sanctioned stories don't hold enough of my memories to feed my starving soul, they don't swirl with the music my heart longs to feel. I write because my story is missing. I imagine a future that grows out of stories that haven't been told.
- J. Otis Powell
From the Session Report Summary of the 2003 Artist & Educator Institute
One hot Minnesota day, in late July, of 1992, writer John Edgar Wideman visited the Twin Cities. I conducted a radio interview with him and went to a raeding of his then newly published book of short stories. We started with a thought expressed in his collection of his short stories, the notion that "all stories are true." A notion he found in an Ibo proverb. "It's a proverb that to me makes a lot of sense," he said, ". . . because the more I write, the less it makes sense to distinguish between what's fictional and what's documentary. I know that it [the proverb] means a lot, but I don't know exactly what it means."
All stories are true. I've been attached to that notion, since that humid day I spent in the company of a man I consider a modern day savant, because there are so many lost and censored stories. Officially sanctioned stories don't hold enough of my memories to feed my starving soul, they don't swirl with the music my heart longs to feel. I write because my story is missing. I imagine a future that grows out of stories that haven't been told.
- J. Otis Powell
From the Session Report Summary of the 2003 Artist & Educator Institute