What truth is there in poetry?
Dear Reader,
Hello again. It’s 2025, and it’s only January, and it’s already feeling a bit apocalyptic (sending love out to you LA). The same week that Meta announced its new approach to fact-checking (to thus, not fact-check), I finally sat down to read this review in the New York Review of Books that a friend had sent me before the holidays. The article by Adam Kirsch engages with philosopher Charles Taylor’s new book Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment, and given that the subjects of Taylor’s analysis are many of the poets most dear to me (Eliot, Rilke, and Hölderlin among them), I found much food for thought.
I agree with the idea that "poetry coaxes the heart out of hiding. It allows us to know what we already know about the richness and mysteriousness of the world but are embarrassed to admit to ourselves in prose." I think there is an element where the language and vision of poetry both create a world and open up the current world to be experienced anew, which may be transcendent.
But, I found myself hung up on the article’s (and perhaps the book’s) search for truth—both poetic truth and a kind of objective truth. I am uncomfortable with whether arguments about truth/objectivity belong in a discussion of poetry or art more broadly. Truth—both capital and lowercase “t” truth—is one of the most fundamental and important debates in our societal moment. Who owns truth? Who decides what’s true? Who has the authority to even say so? And is there any value in staking a claim for it (Meta clearly feels there is not)? These are conversations that need to be had, but I am not sure that poetry (or art) is where I want them to happen.
The artistic vision is one that is subjective in both its creation by the artist and in its reception by the reader/viewer/encounterer. This does not make it more or less. But I am likely very Keatsian about the relationship between beauty and truth. Art provides access to the sublime, and the sublime is simultaneously both grand and intimate. There is verifiable, objective truth and those truths that are human or personal. Beauty provides access to that intimate, personal truth of how you experience the world: of that loneliness of the human wanderer; of what falls in the gap between feeling and expression; of our constant reaching out for connection. At least I hope that’s what’s true and where I keep trying to write my way into, attempting again and again.
This Month’s Recipe: Cozy Farrotto
January in the Midwest is most definitely cozy season. Time to light candles, build forts of soft blankets, and snuggle up with a furry friend. So, here’s a recipe to warm you from the inside out, a dish with all the creaminess of a risotto but made with the whole-grain goodness of farro. I adapted this herbed farro risotto recipe using homemade vegetable stock and adding roasted garlic, chili flakes, and spinach as well as a dash of white wine vinegar. I garnished it with more parmesan, a sprinkling of everything bagel spice as well as some fried shallots that I highly recommend buying in bulk from an Asian grocer (they go so well on everything from salads to mac ‘n cheese and assorted noodles) We made it a full meal alongside some fresh bread and salted butter.
Enjoy and stay warm out there!
Hot Takes
Just finished: The first book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. As I’ve said before, I resist contemporary fiction, particularly one that is the object of so much praise. And really, did I really need to spend time in the mind of a middle-aged Gen X dude? Don’t I know enough about that already as a middle-aged Gen Xer myself? Well, literary world, you were right, and I was wrong. I’ll admit it.
“Few things are harder to visualize than that a cold, snowbound landscape, so marrow chillingly quiet and lifeless, will, within mere months, be green and lush and warm, quivering with all manner of life, from birds warbling and flying through the trees to swarms of insects hanging in scattered clusters in the air. Nothing in the winter landscape presages the scent of summer-warmed heather and moss.”—Knausgaard
Upcoming Poetry & Biscuits Reading
Mark your calendars! More readers and dates will be added soon. And, I always welcome your suggestions and recommendations for writers who may be traveling through. Send me your readers!
January 17, 2025
Natalie Eilbert
Donato Loia
Ruben Quesada
Deborah Shapiro
March 7, 2025
Erika Meitner
Jared Stanely
May 2, 2025
Paula Cisewski
James Shea
September 2025
Andrew Zawacki
Hi, Alyx, Thanks so much for reaching out! And many apologies for this delayed reply, as I've been traveling. I will put you on the invite list for the March reading with Erika. The invitations should go out early next week. I hope you can make it, and I look forward to meeting you and hearing more about your work. many best wishes, Carrie
Hi! I'm so happy to have found your substack and learned about your reading. I heard about how great Poetry and Biscuits is earlier this month. I wasn't about to make this month's reading, but I really hope to make your next few readings. I put them on my calendar. I also am a huge Erika Meitner fan, and have several of her books! If you ever need extra readers, I'd love to participate, too, but no worries if not. You can see some of my work at alyxchandler.com. Thanks, and excited for the upcoming readings!