Writing is like this-you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.
Our small ears never had such a workout as on the Fourth of July, hearing not only our own bursting crackers but also those of our friends, and often the boom of homemade cannon shot off by daring boys of 16 years, ready to lose a hand if it blew up.
When I took over the Writers' Workshop, it was one little class and there were eight students. All of them, brilliantly untalented... I had an absolute vision after the first workshop meeting.