Tell the Truth: Poetry as humanity

I grew up watching PBS and hearing something like this, "This program is brought to you by [list of companies and organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts] which support [list of things] in support of the humanities." I was old enough to know the word within the word —  "human." 

But I often wondered, what are the "humanities" they're referring to? According to the National Humanities Center, "[T]he humanities include the study of history, philosophy and religion, modern and ancient languages and literatures, fine and performing arts, media and cultural studies, and other fields." This definition is intentionally not narrow. It covers everything it means to be human.

Truth does not exist in the extreme. Poetry on one level is about telling the truth.

I’ve never met a poet who truly embraces political extremism. (And I don’t mean staunch political party affiliations.) Extremism is not conducive to writing poetry. To swing into the realm of the "extreme" requires putting a blockade between oneself and part of the truth. Truth does not exist in the extreme. Poetry on one level is about telling the truth. Like other literature, such as fiction, it doesn’t mean that the story you tell in your verses actually happened, but that the story it tells needed to be told at that time to reveal an underlying truth. If you try to write a poem from a place of extremism, the extreme position’s inherent hidden lies become transparently clear.

The current extremist power structure threatens the past, present, and future.

I’ve been told "the humanities" are under threat. The reason for this is that the humanities directly challenge extremists who base their existence on lies and untruth. Currently, the country and our humanity is under siege by a movement that gains its traction and attracts new adherents through lies. Every aspect of the humanities is now being attacked, as books are banned, free education put on the chopping block, the value of the arts denigrated, and cultural value and history denounced. There are even attempts to erase or ignore parts of our past. The current extremist power structure threatens the past, present, and future.

The assault on truth has been a slow process. I distinctly remember during the Reagan years, when Reagan pushed through an education budget reduction and funneled it into his crazy idea of "defense," which he literally and calculatedly called "Star Wars." It was a clear point along the way signaling the intentional dumbing down of America, and proved that we can easily be seduced by lies and deception.

Part of being human is seeking "truth." The meaning of truth has been discussed for thousands of years by every culture in the world. While the basics of truth have been determined, its actual definition remains elusive. Still, we seek it, something the nature of which we’re not exactly clear on, but we know our survival depends on it. 

Get in touch with your humanity… and go do poetry!

Poets dig for truth through an arrangement of words designed to express something that cannot adequately be expressed in prose. The truth might be personal, about one’s relationships with the world and each other, or universal like the meaning of life and death. To expose truth, we seek depth through uncovering the layers that hide us from what’s real.

Many poets report that poems come to them from unknown places, from dreamscapes, and remote pockets of the mind and spirit. The call to write any poem comes from one’s place in humanity, the drive to seek truth and engage with the world we’re born into. Ultimately, the anti-truthers can ban and burn books, forbid religion, rewrite history, or any of the other inhuman misguided tactics underway, but they can’t destroy the basic human spirit that calls us to tell the truth.

So get in touch with your humanity… and go do poetry!