Yesterday in class I made a plea: If there is no possibility that imagination can bring us into communication with each other, if we cannot ever get inside each others' minds and hearts, then there is no hope for human community and we will all be captive within our boundaries. I said something like that. I was speaking specifically about the dual question for fiction writers (and implicitly for their readers): is it allowable for an author to write in the voice of characters whose identity and experience is vastly different than the author's? And, is it possible to do that adequately, with authority and truth?
I did not invoke Adrienne Rich's evocative phrase, used as the title of a collection of her poems, "The Dream of a Common Language." I wish that I had because the phrase is rich in hope (even as Rich was well aware of the obstacles) and also because she died this week. Here is a fine tribute in the
New York Times.
Poetry Magazine link to poems, essays, bio, etc.
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