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. – Emily Dickinson*

I was first made aware of this poem through a sermon delivered by Debie Thomas (“Good News Too Soon: When Triumph Hurts”), minister at St. Mark’s Episcopal in Palo Alto, California (Thomas blogs regularly for the Christian webzine Journey with Jesus; I’d encourage you to check it out!).

Rev. Thomas begins her message as follows: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant, because the truth’s superb surprise is too bright for our eyes. Unless it’s offered to us gently, with kindness, patience, and wisdom, it won’t do us good. In fact, it might even do us harm.”

The poem she references, written by the great Massachusetts wordsmith Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), reflects upon the tenuous nature of truth-telling. The poem consists of four verse-couplets, the first line of which is in iambic tetrameter (four accented syllables), the second iambic trimeter (three accented syllables).

The first line, then, is to be read as follows (stressed syllables in bold):

Tell all | the truth | but tell | it slant

And the second: Success | in Cir | cuit lies

The first two lines (one couplet), then, should be read as one verbal mouthful:

If read correctly you would’ve heard the following rhythm: “da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM,” i.e., seven da-DUMs and then “breath!”

Now, try reading the rest of the poem with the above syllables stressed.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies (breath).

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise (breath).

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind (breath).

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind — (Wasn’t that fun!?)

Now, you may be asking me: why the poetry lesson? Why the syllable stress, the meter, the rhythm?

Well, poetry as a genre of literature operates differently than conversational discourse, prose narrative, or argumentative writing. With poetry it’s less about what it means –i.e., the information-content expressed by the words– and more about how it means –i.e., the formation, order, and sound of the words themselves.

Poetry, to begin with, needs to be experienced and felt rather than interpreted or understood. Toward that end, in poetry the very form of the language has meaning. This means that syllable stress, word order, sound, speed, even type-set, are all crucial factors in the formation of meaning.

To read a poem well then, we need to ask: How does the language behave? How does it express meaning? The question, then, is less “what does a poem mean?” than “how does a poem mean?”

What is so striking about Dickinson’s poem –which seems to be an example of ars poetica (Latin for “the art of poetry”; a poem which remarks upon the nature of poetry itself)– is that its form not only contributes to its meaning-content; it exemplifies its meaning-content!

Tell all the truth but tell it slant / Success in Circuit lies. Successful truth-telling, writes Dickinson, lies “in Circuit”: in a sort of circular, cyclical hovering rather than in a direct, straightforward exchange. The meaning-content of this line is that successful truth-telling depends on indirection, on orbit rather than collision, on a slanted, rather than flat/straight plane. The use of poetic verse with its indirect form thus mirrors the truth-content of these lines.

Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth’s superb surprise. The superb surprise of raw truth is too bright for our frail human minds to accept, comprehend, and enjoy (cf., “delight”). The brilliance of truth is such that it would overwhelm us if received directly. Our infirm nature as finite, limited human creatures prevents us from a direct, straightforward experience of Truth.

As Lightning to the Children eased / With explanation kind. Truth must be handled as lightning is handled among fearful children: adults, by kindly explaining what lightning is, melt away the children’s fears. The sheer brilliance of such heavenly energy is made palatable and acceptable through indirect and gentle explanation.

The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. In plain(er) terms Dickinson concludes her poem: the brilliant splendor of truth must dazzle in a gradual, indirect, circuitous way, or else by it human beings will be made blind. Truth, therefore, compared to bright rays, bolts of lightning, and sparkling sheen, can only be effectively received in a gradual, orbital kind of way.

Rev. Thomas goes on in her message to describe Christians as “bearers of the gospel... of good news.” She says that “Christians affirm that the truth at the heart of reality is that of healing, hope, forgiveness, justice, and peace.” The truth of which Dickinson sings, then, is for Christians the truth of resurrection, a truth which must dazzle gradually or leave every person blind.

Christians then, as followers of Jesus, are in possession of news that is good, news that conveys the Truth of all reality. This news is resurrection, “the cosmic defeat of evil and death,” the fulfillment of God’s dream, namely: “the wiping away of all tears, the soothing of all terrors, the easing of all pain.”

“This dream,” Thomas proclaims, “this gorgeous, indescribable dream, will triumph over all others which attempt to dispel it.” The truth then, that Christians bear, is the news that with God comes resurrection, on a social, political, physical, spiritual, and even an ecological plane.

The truth to which Christians bear witness can be dazzling, illuminating, and healing. But if wielded too directly, head-on without gentleness and care, such truth will blind rather than bless.

Christians, then, I encourage you to practice slanting your truth; to take heed of Dickinson’s ultimate claim, that: “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind – ”

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

*Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (#1129 in Complete Poems, edited by Thomas H. Johnson [London: Faber & Faber, 1976]).

**The image above (an early manuscript of “Tell All the Truth but Tell it Slant”) and others can be accessed online at the richly furnished Emily Dickinson Archive.