Elizabeth Tannen: Origin Story
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Origin Story
The sounds on the floor
when you were born
smelled like grease and
grief but you only heard
shine and girl. In the next
room a woman with white
hair and pink nails
remembered how she
slept in Poland
when it was called Russia.
Your own grandmother stood
in a Manhattan kitchen and ate
one walnut at a time.
A voice inscribed itself
in ancient tongues, between
crevices of spoken crumbs—
keep crawling, it commanded
but you heard don’t go down.
Elizabeth Tannen is a multi-genre writer, editor, teacher, anti-racism facilitator, organizer and activist. She was raised in Brooklyn, New York and have lived for the last five years in south Minneapolis. Elizabeth's essays, stories and poems have appeared in places like NPR, Salon, The Rumpus, The Morning News, Front Porch, Copper Nickel and Southern Humanities Review. In 2018, her poetry manuscript, Notes on Distance, was one of five finalists for Milkweed Editions Lindquist & Vennum Prize.
