Truth in writing poetry

[Lizzie]

I live in a slightly altered reality most of the time, by choice, simply because i prefer it to the truth.  Truth is never true and it hurts and it's boring. 

It DOES hurt and it IS boring.

Eff.

Hug me....

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Remember, it doesn't have to be a real shape.  

This is how the rumour of Penman's Tetraphylactic Moonbeam Manbits begins.

Well, please remember that this is a poetry discussion. So make it into a poem or take it downstairs

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You don't have to lie or make things up -- you just have to allow people to look at your pictures from different angles.  The more you try to make your reader see things exactly "as they were", the less likely it is that they will engage, simply because they may never have seen even a nearly identical situation in the same way as you.  

Metaphor and symbolism are beautiful things.  They allow the reader to project his/her experience onto a poem without actually affecting the way that you intended it.  That's what sets poetry apart from neatly-lined prose.  I would be willing to bet that very few people who read my poems ever know which are from an actual experience of mine and which are entirely imagined -- and I like it that way.

Mmmmmm. This gives me a lot to chew on. Thank you. Answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking...

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Cept Jesus.

Why? Why? Why?

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Something does not need to be factual to be true.

dale

Which came first, the wisdom or the beard?