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Emily Dickinson's "Tell all the truth but tell it slant–" · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, May 3rd, 2024.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by that lovable shut-in,
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  SPEAKER_00: Emily Dickinson,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it's called Tell All the Truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: But Tell It Slant.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's probably one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
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  SPEAKER_00: Success in circuit lies.
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  SPEAKER_00: Too bright for our infirm delight the truth's superb surprise.
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  SPEAKER_00: As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind,
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  SPEAKER_00: the truth must dazzle gradually,
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  SPEAKER_00: or every man be blind.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like so many of Dickinson's poems, this is such a tight, compact little poem and so delightful.
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  SPEAKER_00: What's great about it is that it can be true of both truth with a little t and
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  SPEAKER_00: truth with a capital T.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are little truths that you might want to enfold to someone and you have to do
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  SPEAKER_00: so diplomatically,
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  SPEAKER_00: gradually for them to hear it or receive it.
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  SPEAKER_00: but so too capital T truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think of Plato's analogy of
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  SPEAKER_00: Men who have not yet come to know the truth dwelling in a cave where they see only
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  SPEAKER_00: shadows of the real things that exist up on the surface in the real world.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when one of these men escapes and makes his way up to the surface and sees for
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  SPEAKER_00: the first time the light of the sun,
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  SPEAKER_00: it is blinding to him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then when he descends back into the cave to try and bring others with him,
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  SPEAKER_00: they are so put off by the idea that they fight him violently.
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  SPEAKER_00: They won't even go.
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  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps there is this sense in which we resist the truth because we know that the truth exists.
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  SPEAKER_00: calls us to greater things and because our capacity for receiving the truth often has to grow over time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a parallel example is in the Old Testament,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Hebrew people come to the mountain of God and Yahweh descends upon that
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  SPEAKER_00: mountain in fire and cloud and lightning.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when he speaks to them, they begin to
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  SPEAKER_00: weep and wail and they begged that Moses would speak to God on their behalf and
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  SPEAKER_00: that they would no longer have to hear the voice of God because they're afraid that
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  SPEAKER_00: they would die.
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  SPEAKER_00: We often think that we want the truth and we probably should,
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  SPEAKER_00: but sometimes we surprise ourselves by how unready we are to hear it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Here is Emily Dickinson one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
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  SPEAKER_00: Success in circuit lies.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Too bright for our infirm delight, the truth's superb surprise.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind,
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  SPEAKER_00: the truth must dazzle gradually,
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  SPEAKER_00: or every man be blind.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with another poem for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: To listen to past episodes or support the show, please visit dailypoempod.substack.com.
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  SPEAKER_00: For our whole team at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson.
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  SPEAKER_00: Happy reading.