With Prose You Can Incorporate More Details,

A Lot Of My Students Are Asian-american, And It Has Been Thrilling To Watch Them Break Through The Stereotypes Into Something Alive And Surprising.

I Did Not Have A Very Literary Background. I Came To Poetry From The Sciences And Mathematics, And Also Through An Interest In Japanese And Chinese Poetry In Translation.

The Black Mountain Poet I Like Most Is The Early Creeley. Those Early Poems Seem Very Lyrical And Very Traditional, With A Lot Of Voice And Character.

I Tell Students They Will Know They Are Getting Somewhere When A Scene Is So Painful They Can Just Barely Bring Themselves To Write About It. A Writer Has To Draw Blood.

With Prose You Can Incorporate More Details, Develop Scenes, Sustain The Tension In A Special Way. Prose Has Its Own Speed.