The Truth Is Forced (1961). Content and Description

This poem, which Swenson began in 1961, was not published until 2000, when it appeared posthumously in a volume of poetry called Nature: Poems Old and New. “The Truth Is Forced” is a playfully honest and yet completely suggestive poem and has since intrigued and engaged new Swenson scholars as the poem that reveals the most of Swenson’s own self.

The fact that she wrote this poem and also chose not to publish it during her lifetime is especially tantalizing. In the first few lines, Swenson engages her readers in what amounts to a poetic striptease:

Not able to be honest in person
I wish to be honest in poetry.
Speaking to you, eye to eye,
I lie because
I cannot bear to be conspicuous with the truth.
Saying it—all of it—would be taking off my clothes. (Swenson, Nature 11-12)

As does any striptease, the poem hints that there is more to reveal about the speaker’s identity. It is easy to read this poem as Swenson’s own musings about her craft and her “most precious properties: / distance, secrecy, privacy” because of the decision she made to keep her sexual orientation private. The poet Mark Doty agrees and validates Swenson’s need for mystery. He says: “Naked directness, unadorned, sanitized, tends to work against desire; the power of Eros often lies in what is withheld, at least for awhile.” After all, he argues, “What is less sexy than a nudist camp?” (92).

In the second stanza of “The Truth Is Forced,” Swenson acknowledges the duplicity of using words to obscure meaning. She realizes that her sensuous, wordy game of hide and seek will only make her readers look harder for what is hidden and she admits that:

One must be honest somewhere.
I wish to be honest in poetry.
With the written word.

Where I can say and cross out and say over and say around and say on top of and say in between and say in symbol, in riddle, in double meaning, under masks of any feature, in the skins of every creature.

And in my own skin, naked.
I am glad, indeed
I dearly crave to become naked in poetry, . . . (Swenson, Nature 11-12)

These lines are suggestive and at the same time revealing. While they are obviously discussing poetry and her delight in wordplay, they also illuminate possible reasons for her decision to become a poet. Swenson wanted desperately to find meaning in the truth and lay it bare. “By leaving the core of things unvoiced” she offers “a dummy” in place of herself. And yet, she argues in the final lines, “to force the truth / through a poem” will eventually lead to a greater understanding; when two people looking eye to eye can tell “me / and then you” the whole truth with their whole selves.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Read Emily Dickinson’s poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and compare it to Swenson’s poem “The Truth Is Forced.” In a persuasive essay explore the implications of telling the truth gradually; is honesty always the best policy? Convince your audience of your stance on this ethical question.

2. Swenson’s poem highlights some of the beautiful difficulties of conveying a message or meaning through language. As a student of poetry, analyze how poetic devices such as metaphor and simile can both clarify and confuse a subject.