Reality is Overrated

Julianna Baggott has an interesting post at her blog about creative writing programs and “reality” literature. Meaning, most MFA programs strongly encourage their writers not to stretch their imaginations beyond the bounds of “what really happens.” Which I think makes for some very boring fiction. And also, poetry.
My favorite fiction writers are fabulists, magical realists, writers who cavort at the edge of the possible – Haruki Murakami, Kelly Link, and Margaret Atwood, for instance. Geek culture figures heavily in a lot of the books I read – The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao might fall into that category, or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The movies and television shows I watch aren’t reality shows, or even shows that follow realistic plotlines – they often have superheroes, or time travel, or those kinds of elements. Japanese Anime does wonderful futuristic dystopias, if you’re into that kind of thing.
So why the fetishization in fiction and poetry, in MFA programs, of “the real?” Is it from the old adage, “Write what you know?’ (I always say, write whatever you can imagine. Just imagine it with a lot of specific details.)
I often tell my students to get away from writing about their families of origin, their latest breakups, or their backyards. Yes, I know that’s what Sharon Olds and Billy Collins do. Doesn’t mean you have to do that too. There’s too little flair, wild creativity, in most poetry books today. The old great poets – William Blake, Yeats – they had imagination, and it showed up in their work. I encourage them to try new subjects, write in persona, break out of their personal “reality” cages.
Realism is a fine mode, but it’s not the only mode. It wasn’t the mode of Homer, or Ovid, or some of the finest ancient poets. “Poetry is Not Memoir.”
If you want to put superheroes in your poetry, well, that’s a reflection of some part of your “real world,” anyway. Ancient humans created myths to liven up extremely hard and dull lives. It’s up to us to continue that tradition. So yes, write about your zombies, your superheroes, your anime characters and your folk tales. Write your book in reverse narrative as both a ghost-story and a time-travel story like Karyna McGlynn did in “I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl.” What do you have to lose?