Truth in writing poetry

[Lizzie]

Poetry, movies, painting, novels, etc aren't all non-fiction. They can be, but it doesn't make them any better or any worse.

I'd much rather read or watch or experience an interesting thing that someone made up, than a mundane thing that has actually happened.

It doesn't matter if what was written was "true" for the writer. It matters if it becomes true for the person reading the poem. Often, I write poems where the core idea or emotion is based on something I've experienced, but the images/words used to express the idea are things I find more interesting than what I've actually experienced. Basically, I agree with what the person you quoted says.

A metaphor is very rarely dictionarily "true", yet it's used incredibly frequently in poetry, because it can make a simple idea more interesting.

Sure, this makes sense. I think that, increasingly, I am coming to see the truth of all this.

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Have you tried writing a personal essay? There you can speak the truth as you experience it, and if you need to rearrange facts for any reason you can mention that in the same essay. Me, I believe my dreams and all my thoughts and imaginings are as real as everything else about me. I live my life as if I'm in a coma I could wake up from at any time.

Yeah, I have an autobiographical short story that I'm working on (slowly) that I'm having the exact same problem with! I feel like I need to stick to the facts, but, since it's just all my recollections and speculations, that's not even really on the table. And it's stalling me up because I feel like I'm lying. And, since it's about people who actually exist in my life, I feel under scrutiny to make it, well "the truth." Singular. Because I made the amateur mistake of telling them about the project. Facepalm.

And, I actually feel that my inner life is just as real as my outer, same as you. Sometimes even more so because I'm faking things a lot on the exterior.

Reality is so limiting!

#daydreamerproblems

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Who was is that said, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story?"

Ha! The only autobiographical piece I've posted here in my humble months as a hog was shot down for being too boring.  I'm pondering a revision to make the content more interesting but hesitate to make things up.  I want to use the poem to figure out a personal dilemma, but perhaps therein lies the difference between diary and poetry.

Why is it that contemporary writing fetishizes violence and suffering?  Especially fiction, it seems like every other story I see about some form of sexual violence?  Why? Just for shock value?  Contemporary anthologies are full of them.  

Of course there's truth in violence, but I feel like authors too quickly jump to a shocking conflict at the expense of exploring other truths, which may be 'boring' to bread and circus audiences.

2¢

I'm probably that person that fixates on suffering. Ha! Apologies.

But, I feel very intensely this problem of how do we explore the truths that interest us and we're mulling at the moment with the "nonstop Pantera riff" that the rest of the world expects. I don't know where I got that phrase, so I can't reference.

I feel the impulse sometimes to try to sex up my writing to make it more provocative. I think that people would engage more if my titles were "full frontal" or "naughty girl." You know? I've written a couple of more racy items on this site, and I like doing that, I just resent feeling like I HAVE to do that to "entertain."

You know what? I'm going to just go ahead and start titling my things that way, and let everybody be disappointed when it turns out to be a poem about pine cones or something