My Models Were Oral, Were Storytellers. Like

Salt Is A Powerful Symbol In Haiti, As Elsewhere. Salt Of The Earth, For Example Is An American Phrase. In Haiti, Myth And Legend Has It That If You Are Turned Into A Zombie, If Someone Gives You A Taste Of Salt, Then You Can Come Back To Life. And In The Life Of The Fishermen, There Are So Many Little Things About Salt That I Wanted To Incorporate. The Salt In The Air. The Crackling Of Salt In The Fire. There's All This Damage, This Peeling Of The Fishing Boats From The Sea Salt. But There Is Also Healing From It, Sea Baths That Are Supposed To Heal All Kinds Of Aches And Wounds.

...women, Brave As Stars At Dawn

I Come From A Place Where Breath, Eyes, And Memory Are One, A Place From Which You Carry Your Past Like A Hair On Your Head. Where Women Return To Their Children As Butterflies Or As Tears In The Eyes Of The Statues That Their Daughters Pray To

Write What Haunts You. What Keeps You Up At Night. What You Are Unable To Get Out Of Your Mind. Sometimes They Are The Hardest Things To Write, But Those Are Often The Things That Are Worth Investigating By You Specifically. . .

To Start With, For Example This Year, 2004, Is The Bicentennial Of Haitian Independence.