a question for readers

i recently read a review of a book of poems by laura kamasischke whose poems are
described as confessionally autobiographical like sylvia plath and robert lowell's
poems were in the 60's. the reviewer asks what should we read? who do we turn to
to help us understand our life? is it the fiction or non-fiction writer (or the poet). one writer has said that its experience we learn most from and that the fiction writer can create a story of internal and external events we can vicariously experience. and because "experience resists explanation" fiction comes closer to
the truth than non-fiction. who do you trust? the novelist or the journalist.

we might of turned to the poets in th 60's and 70's but in recent years its the memoirs that are getting the readers. there have been a couple of blantant examples
of memoirs full of lies as this quote points out (both highly touted by oprah before they were exposed as lies) :

"When James Frey approached publishers marketing his manuscript of “A Million Little Pieces” as fiction, none were interested. When he labeled it “memoir” Random House jumped.

Margaret Seltzer's excuse was that she really wanted to tell the stories of the life her gang-member ffriends lived, and she believed that they had a greater chance of being heard if she wrote them as her own story.

Seltzer and Frey both sold memoirs because that's what the publishers wanted. And the publishers wanted memoirs because readers crave them. Non-fiction books sell. Readers want the intimacy of a memoir and the sense of being allowed into another person's world – especially if that person has had a dramatic and harrowing life.

The process of memoir writing is fraught with the possibility of factual inaccuracy, being dependent as it is on memory and recollection. It is nearly impossible to guarantee that every detail of a creative non-fiction story is unquestionably accurate.

Still, readers are right to assume that memoirs are true, or at least as true as memory will allow."

(In her supposed memoir “Love and Consequences” (Riverhead Books, 2008), Margaret A. Jones writes about her life as a half-Native American, half-white girl growing up in a foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She describes her experiences as a drug-dealing gang member in L.A. watching friends and family die in gang violence.)

so my question to you is : what do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?




Kitchen Song by Laura Kasischke

The white bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with nothing.

The sound
of applause in running water.
All those who've drowned in oceans, all
who've drowned in pools, in ponds, the small
family together in the car hit head on. The pantry

full of lilies, the lobsters scratching to get out of the pot, and God

being pulled across the heavens
in a burning car.

The recipes
like confessions.
The confessions like songs.
The sun. The bomb. The white

bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with blood. I wanted

something simple, and domestic. A kitchen song.

They were just driving along. Dad
turned the radio off, and Mom
turned it back on.