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.

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.