Interview

ACT ONE *

Aileen:  [1-00:41] So, you said that we live in a culture of lying and I wanted you to elaborate on this and how it might be linked to women and specifically the environmental crisis.

Betsy:  [pause] It’s a big question. I’m just trying to figure out the way in.

(kids shouting in next yard)

Betsy:  [1-6:41] {edit} I feel there’s a lot of evidence that we are living in a society saturated with lying, whether it’s on the political governance level, or advertisements or the church or organized religion, or whatever. [1-7:02] When I looked at lying, what I’ve discovered about it is that there is never A lie. And that’s what’s so powerful and scary about it because if you tell a lie, you also have to tell yourself in some way, you’re not lying. Or that it’s justified. Which is also a kind of a lie. So there’s the lie and then there’s justifying or denying that you are telling the lie. Then there is making the lie seem like it’s not a lie to other people. So right there you have three lies—immediately. But there is a fourth on the heels of these—just as the liar must not appear to be telling a lie, so the audience must not appear to be listening to, nor knowingly accept the first three lies {post-interview insert}. That’s what’s so powerful about lying.

Betsy:  [1-1:13] I’m working on an essay on lying {edit}.

(her hands are flying as she finds the way in to this conversation)

[1-1:20] I’ve encountered a lot of lying in the last number of years, in the places my life has taken me: things I’ve encountered, people I’ve known. And I’ve been quite aware of it culturally, but I’d never encountered it in so many areas before. {edit} [1-2:04] I think there are circumstances that lying is necessary (self-survival), but for the most part, it’s not necessary but we think it is.

* Our intention is to represent a dialogue while indicating (where possible) the crafting of this narrative into its final form. The author chose time codes to indicate how this interview was crafted.

An excerpt from “Lying: A Play in Two Acts: An interview with poet and creative non-fiction writer Betsy Warland” by Aileen Penner.