Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant or Maybe Not

                               Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant or Maybe Not

                                                                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal Jan. 3, 2016

Martha Hays, the 20th century’s most stellar English teacher, ignited a little rebellion when she required her 11th grade class to read and discuss a poem written by 19th century New England poet, Emily Dickinson.

Understand it was a respectful rebellion. Time and place would not have allowed any other kind. The time was long before the Age of Disrespect. The place was inside the walls of Forest High School in little Forest, Mississippi. (Georgians who traverse Interstate 20 west might know that Forest is about halfway across the state — an area of stately pines, the most beautiful of oaks, occasional persimmons and more than enough sweet gums, hence the name Forest.)

The class rebellion centered on the lifestyle of Dickinson and the thesis of her assigned poem. The boys didn’t like Dickinson. We understood what was meant by “Southern belle” and could not understand why a reclusive, plain, non-communicative woman poet was, of late, being dubbed “the belle of Amherst” (Massachusetts). A belle didn’t stay inside all day and write short, hard poems with no titles. Belles got outside and pranced around. They were crowned “Miss Watermelon,” “Broiler Festival Queen,” or “Miss Hospitality.” Emily Dickinson was not a belle.

The girls in the class were more sophisticated. Ignoring Dickinson, they got right to the point of her poem and outright protested: “Mrs. Hays, she’s saying, ‘Don’t tell the truth!’”

I was never one to say much in class, but I surely knew how to listen, learn and then process and apply later. I remember feeling like a leech, though never failing to appreciate every other class member and what they taught me.

I could also read teachers like a book. Indeed, I constantly studied them because I had already decided to be a teacher and figured I had better start watching closely. Watching Martha Hays that day, I could tell she joyfully anticipated a little controversy. All of us were either Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal, and we weren’t about to accept any notion of slanted truth.

The poem had no title, but its first line was “Tell the Truth but tell it slant.” Its last two lines were “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.” Only eight lines, but they hit their mark just as our astute teacher planned.

Perched on her stool, the wise, beguiling teacher simply let the lesson happen. A good Presbyterian herself, she knew her students. That day the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Pentecostals were all on one side; Emily Dickinson was on the other. The non-committal stance of our teacher drove us nuts.

Finally, Connie Craig got it, and Martha Hays beamed. The rest of us felt foolish. Connie Craig cited line eight where Dickinson declares that truth must be eased in “With explanation kind.” To which the teacher said, “Why did Jesus teach with parables? Why didn’t he go ahead and preach a loud sermon?”

For decades, I have wished I had spoken up and said, “The poem’s not talking about truth as in response to ‘Who stole my pencil?’ but Truth generally and how it is best handed out.” Not that I was thinking such thoughts then. I was one of the 29 whom Connie Craig and our wondrous teacher enlightened.

OK, so what’s the “balance” to all of this which modernity demands? What’s the other side of the story? Hasn’t one of our presidential candidates struck a chord because he has spoken the truth, as so many see it, and has spoken bluntly without slant? To be sure, he has virtually neutered the national media, that mighty institution that hardly believes in objective truth.

The other side, the “balance,” is that sometimes we need to be slammed with the truth. On the road to Damascus, the apostle Paul was not dazzled gradually by a still small voice. He was hit by a 2x4. And not to quibble too much with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, but before implying that truth is self-evident, he should have recalled Cicero’s claim: “If truth were self-evident, there would be no need for eloquence.” Or slamming.

So which is it? Dazzling gradually or slamming? All I know is I’m glad Martha Hays ended the lesson with a quote from James Russell Lowell: “Once to every man and nation / Comes the moment to decide / In the strife of truth with falsehood / For the good or evil side.”

The point is truth is forever on the scaffold. “Yet that scaffold sways the future,” Lowell also wrote, implying that every man and nation must choose well.

Let’s pray we will do so throughout this new year.

Roger Hines
12/30/15