Poetry vs Short Stories

  In a great deal of English courses there is a variety of study. For instance one semester a class might do eight poems, five short stories two novels and a play. This variety is not only to keep the students interested. It is also to help students gather a literary preference. Some students will develop a passion for poetry. Poetry is a beautiful form of writing that most people never get to fully enjoy. Poets can give vivid imagery in the readers head just by coming up with the shortest perfect sequence of words that could momentarily take someone's breath away. Also a lot of poems are not very long in length, the types of poems studied in class usually do not exceed a page. Nonetheless, a poem so short as three stanzas could hold the meaning of something so large that there would never be enough time enough to discuss it all in one class. Ironically, this is the problem with poetry for lots of people. They simply cannot understand the immensity of it. How can something so short hold so much description? This is frustrating for a lot of students and then they turn their poetic brain lobe off never to be intrigued by flow of a poets pen again. On the other hand, short fiction is another possible love of students. Shorts stories are great creative pieces because, as hinted at in their given name, they are short. They give the plot just as any other story but it is to the point, only the important details are included. This is why students would prefer these over novels because the plot is not so dragged out. Be that as it may, this is also the problem with short stories. Due to the fact they are so to the point readers do not develop the same relationship and sympathy for the characters. By the end of a novel you feel like the protagonist was your friend, as if you knew them. Short stories do not give that kind of reader-character bond. Therefore there is no poems are better than short stories of vise versa. It solely depends on preference.