The Art of Truth Telling: Discernment, Authenticity, and Risk with Eugenia Leigh

James Baldwin said, “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see,” and Emily Dickinson wrote, “The Truth must dazzle gradually.” Participants in this workshop will develop the art of seeing and practice the craft of dazzling gradually while examining the nuances between fact and truth. The goal will be to transform poems that simply report or observe into poems that take emotional and creative risks to illuminate truths with authenticity and artistry. But first, to discern which truths to tell and which risks to take, the class will study not only poems and the elements of craft, but also essays from within and beyond the literary world. For example, there is much to learn from physicists who can prove that light is both particle and wave, but understand that only one of these properties can be observed—either light’s particle-ness or its wave-ness—in a single moment (the Principle of Complementarity). Likewise, the poet who desires to speak about light must choose the framework with which to approach the subject. This workshop will guide poets to discern when to present light as wave and when to present light as particle.

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