Table of Contents

Preface • THE PROCESS OF WRITING • A Way of Writing — William Stafford • Work and Inspiration: Inviting the Muse — Denise Levertov • Poetic Process? — Margaret Atwood • Goatfoot, Milktongue, Twinbird: The Psychic Origins of Poetic Form — Donald Hall • Reflections on the Origins of Poetic Form — Robert Bly • Portrait of the Writer as a Fat Man: Some Subjective Ideas or Notions on the Care & Feeding of Prose Poems — Russell Edson • Poetry and Science: The Science of Poetry/The Poetry of Science — Miroslav Holub • Gorky Street: Syntax and Context — Dennis Schmitz • The Two-Tone Line, Blues Ideology, and the Scrap Quilt — Sandra McPherson • THE POETIC LINE: A SYMPOSIUM • The Working Line — Sandra McPherson • A Response to “The Working Line” — James Wright • Further Reflections on Line and the Poetic Voice — John Haines • The Line — Donald Hall • Some Thoughts about Lines — Shirley Kaufman • A Note on Prose, Verse and the Line — William Matthews • Some Thoughts about the Line — Charles Simic • THE IMAGE: A SYMPOSIUM • Image and “Images” — Charles Simic • Notes on the Image: Body and Soul — Donald Hall • Recognizing the Image as a Form of Intelligence — Robert Bly • Image and Language — Russell Edson • Noun/Object/Image — Marvin Bell • POETRY AND VALUES • Some Remarks on “Literature and Reality” — Günter Eich • Meanings of Poetry — Jean Follain • Poetry, Community & Climax — Gary Snyder • Some Notes on the Gazer Within — Larry Levis • The Bite of the Muskrat: Judging Contemporary Poetry — David Young • Not Your Flat Tire, My Flat Tire: Transcending the Self in Contemporary Poetry — Alberta Turner • Stone Soup: Contemporary Poetry and the Obsessive Image — David Walker • Language: The Poet as Master and Servant — David Young • Second Honeymoon: Some Thoughts on Translation — David Young • Here and There: The Use of Place in Contemporary Poetry — Shirley Kaufman • Eden and My Generation — Larry Levis • A Taxable Matter — C. D. Wright • PORTRAITS AND SELF-PORTRAITS • Urgent Masks: An Introduction to John Ashbery’s Poetry — David Shapiro • Poetry, Personality and Death — Galway Kinnell • Poetry, Personality and Wholeness: A Response to Galway Kinnell — Adrienne Rich • Charles Wright at Oberlin — Charles Wright • Secrets: Beginning to Write Them Out — Sandra McPherson • Lessons in Form — Laura Jensen • Body and Soul: Three Poets on Their Maladies • Charles Simic: My Insomnia and I • Shirley Kaufman:Backache, Poemache, and Botz • Lee Upton: The Closest Work • Notes on Contributors • Acknowledgments