Other Than Fiction And Poetry I Tend

I Majored In English In College And That Was My Major In Graduate School Before Switching To Creative Writing. I Read A Lot Of [charles] Dickens And [anthony ] Trollope, But There Was Lots Of Stuff I Hadn't Read Like Thackeray's "vanity Fair," Which Is So Well Written And Funny.

They Are Asleep. This Is The Condition They Prefer. They Are Afraid Of The World And Sleep Is A Way Of Dealing With Their Fear. Someday They Will Wake. Perhaps Something Frightful Will Happen. Indeed, There Is No Better Invitation To The Frightful Than Ignorance - That Is, Sleep. (29)

These People You Used To See Every Day, Friends Or Acquaintances, After A While They Become As Distant As Any Stranger, People You Suddenly Recall Late At Night--you Remember Something They Said Or Something Silly That Someone Once Did. For A Few Moments They Completely Occupy Your Mind; Then You Forget Them Again.

Many Of My Poems Try To Use A Comic Element To Reach A Place That Isn't Comic At All. The Comic Element Works As A Surprise. It Is Unexpected And Energizing.

My Poems Always Begin With A Metaphor, But My Way Into The Metaphor May Be A Word, An Image, Even A Sound. And I Rarely Know The Nature Of The Metaphor When I Begin To Write, But There Is An Attentiveness That A Writer Develops, A Sudden Alertness That Is Much Like The Feel Of A Fish Brushing Against A Hook.