"What can prose writers learn from poetry?" by LISA ALVAREZ

What can prose writers learn from poetry? Often, too often, students focus primarily on their chosen genre whether through individual choice and/or institutional pressure. This talk will examine how developing a close relationship to poetry can teach prose writers about line, imagery, form and content in ways that invigorate and inspire. As Edward Hirsch has suggested, "fiction goes to poetry for the intensity of its use of language," as part of the making literature, "something that lasts in language."

LISA ALVAREZ stories and essays have most recently appeared in American Book Review, Faultline, Green Mountains Review and in the anthology Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America (Norton).  Together with Alan Cheuse, she co-edited Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction (Chronicle Books). She is a professor of English at Irvine Valley College and for over ten years has co-directed the Writers Workshops at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.