The Importance of the WORD: Death & Language

"We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives" - Toni Morrison


I'm blessed for the WORD, whether it be the word of God or it be the words that I come in contact with as a writer.

One of the first classes I took while in pursuit of my MFA degree back in 2001 was Form and Theory of Poetry I. Even fiction writers had to take it, and I can see why. In this class, I learned to appreciate the word: the look of a word, the sound of a word, the way a word felt in my mouth when spoken, the relationship of a word to other words. I learned, truly learned, how to make meaning in a way that not only told a good story or revealed some great "truth", but also revealed remnants of myself.

Toni's right; we do die.

We live to die. That's the big thesis to which the essay on the meaning of life is constructed; it's the thesis we don't want to talk about...no matter how inevitable it is.

Toni's also right when she says we do language, too.

Our time here on Earth is not in vain. Through the LIVING Word, through OUR words, we can leave traces of our journey, of our time, of our culture, of our beliefs, of our loves, of our losses, of our joys, of our heartaches -- of our TRUTHS.

And though we die, those who live, those who shall be born will be able to link themselves to our traces and build upon what we left behind.