Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Truth

“The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.” 

― Nadine Gordimer

“Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...” 

― Natalie Goldberg

“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.” 

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Truth, holding a mirror and a serpent, by  Olin Levi Warner (1896).

 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.   But truth is difficult. 

Your challenge:  Choose a truth to tell in a poem.  Or tell us how and where to find “the truth.”

Allegory of Truth by Jacopo Tintoretto (1 January 1564)

Sonnet 138: 

When My Love Swears That She Is Made Of Truth

by William Shakespeare

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)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

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 —

Search for Truth

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? 

A Truth, a Poem
~

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.)

I Wish I'd Written This

If We Have No Soul

By Natalie Goldberg

If we have no soul

Something aches in us anyway

Heaves our breath

Pumps our blood

Sun thrown across tree tops

Do you see New Mexico?

Wind storms crack across it

Days break against it

I hurt for dry dirt

Big sky

Bell in a tower

Sage across the eye

Burnt land

Old sand carcass

Your rosebuds are hardening

Your leaves turning

My heart burning

This poem appeared in Natalie Goldberg's novel, Banana Rose, as written by the protagonist. So of course it was actually written by the author. I think this protagonist has a lot in common with her author, actually, and this poem has the flavour of other things Goldberg has written about that landscape, such as the poem I Want To Say from the book Top of My Lungs.

I (like most people, I'm sure) first encountered her via her wonderful book for writers, Writing Down the Bones, which was published in 1986. I've owned it since about 1990, when a writer friend visiting America discovered it and was so thrilled with it that she brought back copies for her closest writer pals as well as herself. I return to it again and again, and am always recommending it to people. I even ended up buying a spare copy so I could lend it and still keep it by me.You can find it and her other books on her website. Most of them are also available as ebooks at Amazon. Top of My Lungs was out of print for some time, so I'm delighted to find it on her website too. It's not available as an ebook, but you probably wouldn't want it to be: it includes some of her colourful paintings.

If you haven't yet discovered her books for writers, let me also recommend Wild Mind, the sequel to Writing Down the Bones. The others are good too, and my favourite so far is her most recent, The True Secret of Writing, which is simply beautiful. She always nurtures and sustains me. I am about to start reading her book on writing memoir, Old Friend from Far Away.

Goldberg is a Zen Buddhist, and that influences her writing. 'Make writing your practice,' her teacher told her long ago. That led to her particular approach to writing, which has benefited so many others around the world. She has recounted how, although she was initially acclaimed as a promising new poet, her poetry book didn't take off. So she tried something else, and we're all the richer for her having found her true work in the world. 

I've looked at reviews of her poetry online. They differ. One person finds it sensitive and lovely, another thinks it disappointingly poor. I am still awaiting my copy of Top of My Lungs, but I must say that the two poems I've found online do not disappoint me. I like the sparse but evocative language and the feeling of connection to the land. I like the directness and honesty, the precise yet original imagery. I can see the Zen influence here too — the mindfulness with which she pays attention. What do you think?

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).

Verse First ~ The Ordinary

Verse First ~ The Ordinary

Welcome to VERSE FIRST, where simple notions prompt amazing poems.

Today's notion?

THE ORDINARY

Today's prompt is simple and sweet. Write about something quite ordinary. In the words of Natalie Goldberg, "Give homage to old coffee cups, sparrows, city buses, thin ham sandwiches."

~ 

Post your poem on your site, then link it here. Please! Only share original work and honor the Poets United spirit of community by visiting and commenting on others' contributions.

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Verse First ~ "He Said. She Said."

Verse First ~ "He Said. She Said."

Welcome to VERSE FIRST, where simple notions prompt amazing poems.

Today's notion?

"HE SAID. SHE SAID"

Poet and short story writer Grace Paley said, "It is the responsibility of writers to listen to gossip and pass it on. It is the way all storytellers learn about life."

Natalie Goldberg expounded on this idea by saying, "We should learn to talk, not with judgment, greed or envy, but with compassion, wonder and amazement."

Today you have some options. Write about gossip. Write about what happens when wagging tongues do harm. Or not. Write a poem of conversation. Or write about the growth potential when interactions are based on compassion, wonder and amazement. You choose.

After posting your poem on your site, link here. Please post only original work that speaks to the prompt; and then honor the Poets United spirit of community by visiting and commenting on others' contributions.

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Verse First~We are Interconnected

Verse First ~ We Are Interconnected

Welcome to VERSE FIRST, where simple notions prompt amazing poems.

Today's notion?

WE ARE INTERCONNECTED

Writer, poet and teacher Natalie Goldberg once said, "We are all interwoven and create each other's universes... We don't live for ourselves; we are all interconnected."

You affect me. I affect you. One action begets a series of reactions, which expand the web of connectedness. Every action is a pebble in the pond, every reaction a ripple. And so it goes. Consider the vast truth of this and write about it.

After posting your poem on your site, link here. Please post only original work that speaks to the prompt; and then honor the Poets United spirit of community by visiting and commenting on others' contributions.

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