National Poetry Month: James Laughlin

"The Truth Teller"

(James Laughlin)

As I was walking along the sidewalk

Of 14th Street I encountered a mad-

Woman who, without pause, was talking

To herself in a loud voice, making

Wild gestures as she went along. I

Turned around to follow her, thinking

She might have a message for me, some-

Thing I ought to know about. Perhaps

She was in her fifties, a dumpy

Little person, her hair all in 

Unkempt tangles. She was wearing

A bright red dress which must have

Been given her by the Salvation

Army. Her high sneakers were filthy.

Although I got close to her, she

Was hard to understand. At times

Her voice rose to a shout. Was it

Yiddish, Polish, Italian she was

Speaking? None of those that I 

Could recognize. Was she echolalic? 

Probably she had been let out of

A mental hospital as harmless.

Then I got it: she was cursing

God in very rough language. "You've

Made a fucking mess out of this

Fucking world. No place for us

Poor people to live, nothing to 

Eat unless we beg for it. Only

The fucking rich people have

Anything and they don't give a

Shit about us. And the fucking

Police rousting us out of the

Good begging streets, fucking

Bastards the lot of them."

That was the message, and it

Was the truth, a a true message. 

When we stopped for the lights 

At Eighth Avenue I reached for

My wallet and gave her all the

Bills I had. She didn't thank

Me, didn't even look at me. She

Just stuffed the money into the 

Neck of her dress and ran across

The avenue, still shouting and

Swearing. "fucking world you've

Made, all shit, fucking shit."

"The Truth Teller" by James Laughlin appears in his 1993 collection, The Secret Room. Laughlin created New Directions Press after spending a period in Europe with Ezra Pond: "I stayed several months in Rapallo at the 'Ezuversity,' learning and reading," Laughlin told Linda Kuehl for the New York Times Book Review, "until Pound said it was time for me to go back to Harvard and do something useful. Being useful meant that I should publish books, because at the time publishing was still suffering from the Depression and none of [Pound's] friends, except Hemingway, had steady publishers."