poets, playwrights and me...

I always wonder when I read someone’s work (even ~ especially? ~ those emails of yours that look so much like poems), or see someone’s work on stage: How much of that is them? How much of what someone writes is fiction and how much of it is based in truth…in their own experience, their own life? How many of those words come straight from the soul? How do I know, how do any of us know, if what is written is, in fact, fiction? (or in fiction, fact?) So many times I have been witness to this sort of testimony: part performance, part confession, part fairytale, part memoir… How do I know how much of it is true? How much of it is you?

I always wonder.