Truth And Experience Poem by Paul Hartal

Truth And Experience



“Your writing cannot be good”, he said.
He noticed the glint of surprise mixed
with disappointment in her eyes.

“And why is that? ” she asked.

“Because the key to good writing
is personal experience”, he said.
“Nothing can substitute for the truth
expressed through creative writing.
Truth and authenticity are intertwined
and they can come only from
your direct contact, exposure and
understanding of life, the things
and events you write about.”

“ I disagree”, she said.
“How so? “ he asked.

“Well, a great deal of excellent writing,
including historical themes and science
fiction are not based on personal
experience. And as for truthfulness, well,
personal experience doesn’t pledge
that the writer’s work necessarily
expresses universal truths. If you describe,
for example, watching a sunrise or
a sunset, it would be possible to argue
that you are not telling the truth,
that you are actually lying.”

“This is quite absurd”, he said. “You are
talking nonsense.”

“Oh, not at all”, she said.
“A personal experience can be an illusion.
In reality the sun doesn’t rise
and doesn’t set. Relatively speaking,
the sun stays in its position
at the center of the solar system
while the earth rotates on its axis
and makes a complete turn in every
24 hours. The rotation of the earth
toward the east creates the illusion
that the sun is moving westward.”

Thursday, February 26, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: writing
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Kelly Kurt 25 March 2015

Once again, a poem which rings with perspective. What is truth? What is real. Even separated by only two feet, our view of a chair across the room is different enough to elicit very different descriptions. Red is red only in the mind of one who thinks he's seeing red. It is simply a wavelength of light. Yes, writing what you know can be a good place to start, but writing what you can imagine is a good place to be.

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