Two Truths and a Lie (10.9.22)

Out of desperation, maybe, I thought up this project for Wednesdays@One. We've been stuck sharing "whatever you're working on presently," which in itself isn't a bad thing, of course, but too much of the same . . . you know the rest. So we are in need of something more structured, that everybody works on together so each gets to see how others approach the same subject or writing problem. 

I used to use this "game" as an ice breaker when facilitating large workshops, as a way to get those reluctant to talk, to talk at least a little at the beginning, and to learn to trust the others in the group enough to share something about themselves. Didn't always work out the way I hoped, but usually people played along and we'd develop a baseline for communicating with one another.

Since poetry writing is such a solitary thing, I thought "two truths and a lie" might be a kind of communal effort in mining the truth and lies.  As I said to my group, creative writing is the art of telling lies skillfully, to paraphrase Aristotle, so a poem with a fib in it might not be a bad thing. From some perspectives, in fact (and now I'm selling you a kind of truth), all art is lies, which is to say, edited and shaped. This project will give us a chance to talk about "truth" in a poem, what it is, how to recognize it, and how to attach value to it.

Two truths and a lie. Write a poem in which you tell two true things and one lie about yourself, your biography, your outlook on or opinions about the world, or about some event, prospect, idea, scene. It doesn't have to be biographical, much less confessional. You can point the lens outwardly, to the world, if you like. Our objective as readers is to determine which are the truths and which the lie, and then to look into how successfully you incorporate "truth" and "falsehood" into a poem.

Some questions we might address as we go through these poems include:

• What is "truth" and "falsehood" in a poem (i.e., art)?
• How do notions of truth and lies affect the writing of a poem?
• Are poems--is any art--beholden to "the truth"?
• Is it okay to lie in a poem? When? Why?
• What does it mean to lie in a poem?
• What is the relationship between "truth/untruth" and "fact"?
• Discounting truth as mere fact, is there such a thing as universal truth? Self-evident truth?
• When is a lie "bald-faced"?

I can tell you this, in writing my own two-truths-and-a-lie poem, I've struggled to decide whether to stick mainly to facts or to try to address more subjective matters. I've edited and re-edited to see how a "story" (the lie in Aristotle's sense of writing) might tell the truth, or a truth, and whether that truth applies across the board or is merely my own truth. I've pondered, in turn, the nature of truth, whether it's "relative," as they say, and if so, is it really truth or just opinion or belief. And what in the end does truth have to do with belief? With facts? With reality? With community? With selfhood?

A ponderous project indeed!

Have fun.