The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.
From Robert Morgan
When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.
Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.
I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.
I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.
Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.
I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that.
Young writers only take off when they find their subjects. Since almost everyone has a family and stories about family, that is often a place to start.
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.
The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.
10 perspectives
9 perspectives
8 perspectives
7 perspectives
3 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives