Ever since my days as a wandering poet, I've believed in the power of story. As I was hitchhiking around the country, I once wandered into a biker bar in Phoenix. Being young, poor, and desperate, I asked the bartender if I could give a 45 minute poetry reading. In exchange, if I could hold the attention of the customers , could I have a pitcher of beer and a pizza? The bartender actually snorted. "You're going to read poetry to this crowd? This I gotta see!" I not only got my beer and pizza (after an hour of performance), I got lots of deeply insightful comments from the audience. I say this not because bikers have the souls of poets (some do!), but because I learned, as I knocked about and gave readings, that dense and deeply allusive verse (academic poetry) left most folks cold. What they wanted were stories . So my poetry tended toward dramatic narratives. The closer I got to an authentic experience, the more it resonated. The same is true of library stories. ...