Poetry vs. Fiction

I couldn't help but notice, over the past four years since Perigee began, that poetry is far more popular these days than fiction. I would estimate that 70 percent of our submissions for each issue are poems, and it is true that our poetry contest far exceeds our fiction contest when it comes to participants. I'm beginning to wonder why.

The dichotomy here is that poetry is distilled: every word must count, every syllable, every sound. Fiction (and I'm talking about short fiction here) is quite distilled in its own right: every sentence must either reveal character or advance action. Yet fiction of any length enjoys freedoms poetry does not, cannot, allow. The dichotomy lies in the fact that fiction takes more of an investment, I believe, than poetry; in today's world of instant-gratification, writers and readers have less time for fiction than for a five, or ten, or twenty line poem. A poem which gives them an immediate, easy emotional response--like a shot of tequila or a skydive from a Cesna.

Fiction, I fear, is falling to the wayside if only because it takes longer (although it shouldn't) to write: If you have talent you can cheat a poem; even talent can't forego the time it takes to construct and write a story. Fiction takes time, it takes deliberate concentration.

All of this is a sign of the times, yes, but it isn't what I expected four years ago when I established Perigee. How odd that the most potent distillation of language is becoming the easy fix, the least imposing, the convenient. None of which makes it good. None of which improves it.

R J Woerheide
Editor in Chief