The midwifery of words

Toni Morrison, a compass.

We live in strange times, yes, Trump et. al. but if we are honest, things have been strange for a while— as though the last few months have just sped up a process we could already sense happening. The fissures have spread and cracked open. The future is here.

A few years ago, in a previous iteration of this newsletter, I wrote about why I use Story Doula, first as a private North Star, one I found too embarrassing to share: to be in service of stories, people and connection. The cliche happened— I got older, I cared less. Now it is my project, my business, my newsletter and more (stay tuned ;) ).

I could write you an essay on why I have claimed Story Doula, I could write you a book or a poem. Or I could just quote Toni Morrison:

“The systematic looting of language can be recognised by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation.”

Morrison spoke those words in 1993 when she accepted her Nobel prize, but she foreshadowed what we see so much of now, a creeping discourse that is entirely unhuman— sped up, synthesised, rendered meaningless through the haze of online discourse, unable to tolerate nuance and perspective and points of view, until we use our fleshy voiceboxes to speak in digital bytes, reaching for each other but never able to humanly connect.

“It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience.”

In the form of a parable Morrison shares the antidote— and in this age what she suggests feels as though it involves risk. But read it, and take it on today if it is useful to you.

“Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly – once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul”.

Stories from me

— I’ll be at a writing residency with other writers on the NSW South Coast at Bundanon in a few weeks. We’ll then share our work on Sunday the 4th of May— more info here

— At the same time, Apil 24- May 4th, the Byron Bay Underground Film Festival will show Australian Mongrel, the short film I made with the excellent Rocco Fazzari. Check it out if you’re around that way

Stories elsewhere

— Speaking of Toni Morrison’s warnings: The Ideological Brain [an article, but I plan to read this book]

— How to Be More Alive: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent on Breaking the Trance of Near-living

— I’m a German citizen in 1933 and is it just me or is it really hard to get any work done right now

— A free story for these times by veritable story angel George Saunders

— Has your work been pirated by AI on LibGen [Mine has! I feel conflicted— like I do when I get catcalled in my old age— disgusted but also masochistically flattered]

— Rick Rubin, legendary producer, but I know him for his book The Creative Act which I listened to on audiobook and it felt like channelling the voice of a Creativity God delivering useful sermons from on high. He’s started a substack on the same theme.

Talk soon

x B