Editor’s Note

 truth (n.)

Old English triewð (West Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faith, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant," from Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho, from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith," from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast." With Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)).

True or False: If I am writing this during the 10th day of home confinement in my home state of California, on the 29th day of the third month in the year 2020, then it must be that we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You could construct a truth table and conclude that yes, my statement is in fact true, but it is conditional on the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, depending on who you ask, may or may not be true.

There are at least four ways to be “true”, depending on the part of speech, according to Merriam-Webster:

Adjective: To be “true” is to be “in accordance with the actual state of affairs”; or adverb: “without deviation” (adv.); or noun: “the quality or state of being accurate” (n.); or verb: “to make level, square, balanced, or concentric”.

In contrast, the word “truth” is always a noun, though it, too, has variable meanings: “the body of real things, events, and facts”, being one, but if we look to other sources for its meaning, such as theology, art, philosophy, and science, what is “true” is debatable.

We now inhabit a world where “post-truth” is an entry in the dictionary, “truth isn’t truth”, and “truthy” substitutes for evidence-based truths (but is also a crucial component of JavaScript). As a word person, someone who delights in word origins and definitions and double entendre, I confess to feeling upended by this.

If you would like to delve deeper, there are a number of major academic theories of “truth”, but what we are chiefly concerned with here, in this the eleventh issue of Poemeleon, launching now in the spring of 2020, is the intersection of “subjective truth” with “objective truth”.

If you read this issue, then you will know the truth. Or, at least, someone’s.

Cati Porter, March 29, 2020

[Cover art: Bettering American Poetry v. 1 & 2, as reviewed by Maureen Alsop]