Truth and Lies

The poems Patrice Vecchione collects in Truth and Lies: An Anthology of Poems function as piercing testimonies to the difficulties in foraging a path to truth, both seeking it and adhering to it. Perhaps Lucille Clifton's ""Why Some People Be Mad At Me Sometimes"" gets to the heart of the collection best: ""they ask me to remember/ but they want me to remember/ their memories/ and I keep on remembering/ mine."" In ""True Stories,"" Margaret Atwood cautions against asking others for the truth while William Blake's ""The Poison Tree"" spells out the cost of keeping truth to oneself; Naomi Shihab Nye's chilling ""Our Principal"" lends new weight to the adage ""practice what you preach."" (Jan.)