"Perhaps the World Ends at the Kitchen Table"
National Poetry Month and how Joy Harjo's people said no to Tell Me a Story, but that was okay
April is National Poetry Month. It also happens that today’s episode of The Slowdown featured Victoria Chang reading Joy Harjo’s “Perhaps the World Ends Here.”
This poem is a favorite of mine and one of the spurs to make me want to start this newsletter and the Tell Me a Story series.
When I reach out to someone about sharing a story, I typically give the guidance that I’m looking for the types of stories we’d share at the kitchen table, after dinner is done and the kids have gone off to bed.
Some of the most fun to be had is around the kitchen table with family and friends, when everyone is just tired enough to let their guards down and get a little weird and/or introspective and/or vulnerable and/or a storyteller. It’s a place where we sit together and let shizz go.
Harjo’s poem includes the fun, but also spreads beyond - the kitchen table being the center of life, the good and the bad.
I reached out to Harjo about sharing a story for the Tell Me a Story series. Her folks graciously said no. I can understand if she was looking to avoid some commitments as she had finished her third term as Poet Laureate of the United States.
While I won’t break copyright law by sharing “Perhaps the World Ends Here.” It is available online as well as in Harjo’s book, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky. Or you can listen to her read it, right here: