I guess that would have been 1968. I was a freshman in college and I wasn't writing good poems, but I was at least trying to write poems then.
I think one of the things that distinguished my work from the beginning when I was in college was my turning towards poetry from other countries.
When I was a freshman in college I went to Grinnell College in Iowa. I brought my poems to my freshman humanities teacher whose name was Carol Parsinan, a wonderful teacher. And Carol did a really great thing for me. She taught me more than anyone.
