Hi! Longtime lurker and graduate of a grad CW program—just wanted to encourage you in this trying time! (Definitely felt the same way as you during my first application cycle and during my first year at my CW program as well!)
Firstly, if you don't mind answering: what made you discouraged about writing fiction?
Secondly: what made you write fiction (back when it was your lifelong passion) and what makes you write poetry?
I ask these things because the fact that you are a creative writer is already an indication that you are doing great things. The fact that you are a writer of two genres is already a testament to your skill as a writer! Despite how it may seem, not many writers in the academic or professional CW world write in two genres (the numbers you see for dual writers are a very small handful of the large writing world, so please trust me on this!). Furthermore, the fact that your two genres are fiction and poetry is amazing. When I was in my first program, I was often told that although fiction and poetry seem very linked, poetry was more linked with nonfiction/CNF than it was with fiction. In short, you are a writer already doing things that are above and beyond the average writer.
As far as which genre to choose when applying, the main thing boils down to your thesis. Your thesis will be your main manuscript, which you will be able to use to submit as a book-length manuscript to publishers/agents. Do you want to have a book of poetry vs. a collection of short stories or a novel (vs. a collection of essays or a memoir for CNF writers)? The genre you apply in will result in a book of that genre. Some programs that offer cross-genre studies might allow you to have a hybrid thesis based on your studies and work produced while you're in the program, but these often need to be approved by the program director (so even if a program allows for cross-genre work, the your thesis might still be required to be in your primary genre).
But ultimately, I think it's best to apply in the genre you are most excited to learn. No matter what genre you enter in, you can write whatever genre you want as a graduate student! But many programs give workshop sign-up priority to students within the genre before letting other students in (ie. MFA fiction students will fill up the MFA fiction workshops before poets, CNF, PhD, and advance undergrads are allowed to sign-up... so depending on the max capacity of the workshop and the size of the fiction cohort, poets may not be able to enter a full workshop of fiction writers).
Hope your spirits will be lifted soon! (To all the writers in this forum, I wish you all the best in your writing!) If you write, you are a writer, degree or not. I hope you will all continue to write because you are all doing great things for this world by being writers.
