Art Saves Lives

by Jan Priddy

I used to have a bumper sticker on the back of my car that read: Art Saves Lives. I was sorrier to lose that slogan than I was, eventually, to lose the car. Because that is how it feels and what we writers mean to do. We add our words to those who came before. We claim them: Sappho and Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain, William Stafford and Ursula K. Le Guin, Joan Didion and Mary Karr. We know them by their words. We should be humbled, but our goals are not humble....