From Petra's readings:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
*****
‘Consistency breeds apathy. The beauty of repetition lies in the occasional disruption of repetition: Expectation and reward. Expectation and reward. Expectation, expectation. Surprise!’
‘Expectation and reward. Expectation and reward. Expectation, expectation. Are you listening? You are listening? Really? Well then, here’s what you’ve expected: your reward.’
‘Even if you weren’t listening to the words, you could hear the music of them—like the songs we sing our children, the lyrics of which are often quite dark and distressing, though the melodies sound nice. This is a way to raise the threat of danger in the midst of calm. It is also a way to create calm in the midst of danger. Create a pattern, reward that pattern, and disrupt that pattern—…’
‘…we return to a pattern, but we return to the pattern informed by the changes we have witnessed, and so we see the pattern differently. We remain alert, aware that there is ever the potential for disruption, for change.’
‘Whether or not something feels safe depends entirely on the context in which that something is encountered. By changing the contexts of even the most benign objects, … can create a sense of nostalgia and peace or foster an entirely different response.’
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
-Margaret Atwood
‘We think we have an idea of where we are going. We had no idea where we were going.’
‘And, thus, we have been rewarded. It’s a thumb on the nose to the reader who thinks he knows what he wants. It’s a way to force us to pay more careful attention to the world we think we already know.’
‘To attend to the world carefully is to attend to the world more slowly, more painstakingly, and without waste.’
From: Camille T. Dungy. Tell It Slant. June 10, 2014.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/articles/detail/70128