Laura

“I love his dear eyes in which the vulnerability and beauty of his soul can be plainly read.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Storytelling, you know, has a real function. The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this because your life could use some help, but they don't want to come over and just give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole self. That's what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you."

~Alice Walker, in an interview about her work in Common Boundary, 1990”
― Alice Walker

“Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.”
― Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

“Pagan

At home
in the countryside
I make the decision
to leave your book
--overdue at the library--
face up, 'promiscuous'
out in the sun.

Pagan.

I laugh to see
this was our religion
all along.

Hidden
even from ourselves
taught
early
not to touch
the earth.

Years of white gloves
straight seamed hose.
'Being good girls.'
Scripture like chains.
Dogma like flies.
Smiles like locks
and lies.”
― Alice Walker