Early on, I participated in workshops Stephen Berg and C.K. Williams took turns giving each year in Philadelphia. Steve never commented on specific lines but let the table talk while he drew lines and circles that brought a poem to life. He could take okay stuff and leave you shaken and pale. Charlie was much more interactive. Some of the lines Steve drew took me years to understand but they also made continuing possible. One saw oneself catapulted into the future. Charlie never found much in my work that he liked; Steve only one poem twenty years later. Why did they give these workshops? It wasn't generosity alone; they wanted to stay connected to an ongoing source of inspiration. Steve's approach, which I internalized, feels insulting if you're not prepared for it and almost everyone in the city hated him. Steve's art school students hated him; other teachers hated him. But close up, he was electrifying. I only learned to write at about the same pace that I learned to comment. Something that must surprise everyone caught up in the fury of competition. It shocked me. We think that all the big names who teach are there for the only paycheck available to them. They also say you've only learned something once you can teach it to someone else. Forty years later, I've begun to appreciate how deep that goes.



Steve and Charlie edited each other. Not a single word got out until it had gone through the other's filter multiple times. As a piece approached completion, they emailed commas and semicolons. That's how unfair the world is. As in sports, the better the athlete, the more surrounded by coaches and trainers.