“I have Portugal down as a great place from and in which to experience, even enjoy, this spectacle“
I chanced upon an intriguing cartoon strip this week: one featuring the advice of Emily Dickinson to fellow humans, to whom she suggests: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant”. What might she mean?, I thought, drawn in by a presumed and deep wisdom, even if the plain words made no immediate sense.
Quite honestly, I know little about this American poet; just as I understand, she was little-known too during her lifetime but has since been regarded “as one of the most important figures in American poetry”, at least according to Wikipedia.
In the cartoon I speak of, artist Grant Snider riffs upon Emily’s theme, the first line from her poem of the same name – ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant’, which, you can see here, has enchanted and reeled me in, after our chance encounter.
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 —
Snider’s interpretation: “Say exactly what others are thinking, but can’t say aloud, without the world tilting” seems fair, and furthermore fascinating, causing me further cogitation on Dickinson’s words, work and helpfulness in these turbulent times. And as ever, I ask you to bear with me, should you (quite rightly) be thinking: what on earth has this to do with life in Portugal?
I’ll start by saying that you might find Emily Dickinson’s work, or at least some of it, especially the more upbeat offerings, a useful guide to navigating the good ship of your life as it sails innocently into March, in the year of our overlords. And I’ll end, as I hope you’ll see, inspired by her challenge to tell the truth about life as I see it, here in Portugal, dazzlingly, but without upset or injury.
So, with the words (and the dare) of Ms Dickinson in mind, what can I tell you – with a Munson-esque angle on it – about Portugal, or indeed life in general, that we are all thinking, but no one dares say out loud for fear of causing a ‘tilt’?
To start, I clearly needn’t worry about tilting things, given that others have very ably taken care of that part of Emily’s proposition in recent times, where from some, maybe many, perspectives all is askew, and all bets are off. “We are not just tilted Emily, we are upside-down,” some might say.
What I suspect few, if any, dare say out loud is where all this tiltedness is headed, and what we can do about it. So, I will just go ahead and say it…
“We are not just tilted Emily, we are upside-down,” some might say.
To my mind, what we are witnessing in the ‘big picture’ are the death throes of an ailing political and economic system that is no longer fit for purpose. We know, as national debts spiral up to inconceivable levels, demographic patterns cause concern about how so few will care for so many, and with domestic and global political upheavals the norm, more than the shock they once may have been, something is not right, to say the least. Together, we are flogging a dead horse folks and the ‘jockeys’ we once trusted and delegated our authority to are overweight, overpaid and underperforming.
Sure, this system, with all its faults, is better than some other notable failures in the sometimes dismal history of human affairs, and has got us this far, with improved prospects for ourselves, our brothers and sisters. Some commentators even say we have never had it so good, which, while possibly true for some, cannot hide the inequity, instability and unsustainability of the dominant modus operandi, its narratives and empty promises.
Something ‘new and improved’ is needed, for the edification of us all that matches our dreams with our reality. What we are seeing is not a glitch that a few more course corrections can avert. This system is done and dying, in front of our eyes. In real time.
Not only are Emperor Trump’s new clothes horrifically see-through, so are all those of his political class colleagues worldwide – to all but the most ideologically captured or in the deepest denial. You know it, I know it. And all that remains is to face our addiction to vain hope, throw off the last vestiges of Stockholm Syndrome, and act in a way commensurate with the unspeakable reality which now faces us.
“I dwell in possibility,” said Emily Dickinson, as we all can, whilst hearing and heeding her assertion that “the soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door,” she also uttered, knowing that we are “finite to fail, but infinite to venture,” accepting that whilst failure is inevitable, our capacity to keep going and improving knows no such limits.
Our brains, she told us, are “wider than the sky”. So, let’s stop them being boiled with current frustrations and take what’s good and make it even better. If you’ve come this far with me, and sense too that we are in the midst of an end-of-empire, epochal transformation for the West, and the way of life it has hitherto enjoyed, I have Portugal down as a great place from and in which to experience, even enjoy, this spectacle.
And not only a place to observe this great change, but one in which we might participate too, to shape and influence what is to come next, for surely that is our responsibility, once the seemingly inevitable has been noted and surrendered to.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all,” are the final words from the Dickinson canon that I’ll leave you with, having been honest with you, remaining hopeful for us all, and grateful that we live here where the best of the old world can meet the ‘superb surprise’ of the new.
Footnote: Portuguese poet Ana Luísa Amaral said of Emily Dickinson, about whom she was an expert: “Attempting to ‘transport’ Emily Dickinson’s poems into Portuguese is a still harder task, because Dickinson’s poetry is notable for its peculiar agrammaticality: unexpected plurals, inverted syntax, and an often-complete disregard for gender, person, or agreement between nouns and verbs.”
