Black Lightning: Poetry in Progress

This book is distributed by Temple University Press for the Asian-American Writers' Workshop. This book features Eileen Tabios (editor of "The Asian Pacific American Journal") discussing the development of a particular poem(s) (featuring early drafts leading to the final draft of a poem) with some of the country's leading poets: Meena Alexander, Indran Amirthanayagam, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Luis Cabalquinto, Marilyn Chin, Sesshu Foster, Jessica Hagedorn, Kimiko Hahn, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, Timothy Liu, David Mura, Arthur Sze (who also provides an introductory essay), and John Yau. "Black Lightning" is the first ever publication of poetry-in-progress articles showcasing Asian-American poets. Though the focus of the book is on Asian-American poets, "Black Lightning" is also believed to be the first collection ever of poetry-in-progress articles that actually feature the drafting stages of the subject poems. Thus, is an invaluable addition to creative writing and poetry literature in general. Author note: Eileen Tabios is editor of "The Asian Pacific American Journal" and author of a poetry collection entitled "Beyond Life Sentences". Her poetry, fiction, and essays have been published in numerous publications in the United States. She is currently editing a book on the Philippine poet Jose Garcia Villa.