ustxtxb_obs_1985_10_11_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

THE TEXAS Writing To Save The World Grace Paley in Austin, 1980. Pho to by Ala n Pog u e “Though the world cannot be changed by talking to one child at a time, it may at least be known.” from “Friends,” Later the Same Day. 13 SERVER A Journal of Free Voices October 11, 1985 One Dollar By Martha Boethel It wasn’t my ocean she was a wave in. In fact, I am stuck here among my own ripples and tides. Don’t you wish you could rise powerfully above your time and name? I’m sure we all try, but here we are, always slipping and falling down into them, speaking their narrow language, though the subject, which is how to save the world and quickly is immense. Faith, “The Story Hearer” MOST writers write “to save the world” in the sense of preserving in words a truth, an experience, a. culture, some small or large part of the whole of human existence. But Grace Paley, of course, is speaking here about the actual, physical existence of our planet, about the threat that “the human race, its brains and good looks, will end” in our time. The focus of her work is, truly, how to save the world.