[Tim McGrath]

James and RCL, there is no better novel than "Moby-Dick." Nothing rewards random and repeated reading like the quest for the great white whale. The language, the poetry, the prose-poetry, can be measured against the language of "Macbeth," which is considered the nonpariel, the ne plus ultra.

Julie Steiner, it's good to not self-identify as a poet, because the muse may abandon you. But what's the difference between a published poet and an unpublished one?

Joyce Carol Oates is a staggering talent, well deserving of a Nobel Prize. I find Gluck unreadable, but I love the short stories of JCO. Some of them are perfect.

I agree, Sarah-Jane, that there is a lot of talent out there. much of it untapped. Not everyone is equally gifted, though. Time and chance happeneth to us all.

I don't know much about Dickey's poetry, but I do know that I didn't like the movie.

I won a scholarship to an MFA program. maybe because I was the only formalist and maybe because the English Department, not the Director of the Writing Program, selected the winner. I took solo aim at Greensboro, searching for the ghost of Randall Jarrell. My talent, such as it was, had evaporated before the first semester. So I read promiscuously for the year. It was great