05-19-2012, 09:20 AM
Great fiction (even in poetry), is great because it's believable. It could be about anything, aliens, faeries, vampires, werewolves... whatever, and for the length of the poem/story, you can believe that they are true. Logically you know otherwise, but good writing transports you to other possibilities outside of reality. True fiction is the same, the lines between reality and fiction should blur so closely that you can't tell it's fiction, even if you know it is.
"Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them." - Friedrich Nietzsche