SOURCE: An interview in The Craft of Poetry: Interviews from "The New York Quarterly", edited by William Packard, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1974, pp. 321-40.

Here, Wakoski discusses her beginnings as writer, the technical aspects of her work, including imagery, poem structure, and working habits, and the methods she employs in teaching poetry.

[Fortunato]: Could you tell us when you began writing?

[Wakoski]: I really did start writing when I was a little kid. I wrote my first poem when I was seven years old, about a rose bush, and then I wrote a lot of poetry when I was in high school. I got seriously involved in college, which was when I decided I would spend my life as a poet. Right about the time I was taking Thom Gunn's workshop. That workshop was a wonderful workshop because Thom was very gracious when he said I didn't need a...