 |
“Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...”
“Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude.”
Midweek Motif ~ Truth
Back
in the 1970s, Adrienne Rich’s “Women and Honor: Some Notes on
Lying” asserted that omission of truth is as much a lie as falsifying of information. Honor demands truth. Rich says:
“The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire.”
I
believe we poets aim always to tell the truth about things and about truth
itself.
Your
challenge: Choose a truth to tell in a
poem. Or tell us how and where to find “the
truth.”
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
~
 |
| Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1896) |
~
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
by DH Lawrence
Search for nothing any more, nothing
except truth.
Be very still, and try and get at the truth.
And the first question to ask yourself is:
How great a liar am I?
except truth.
Be very still, and try and get at the truth.
And the first question to ask yourself is:
How great a liar am I?
~
Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—
(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Running.)
