It's tempting, I think, when writing narrative-driven prose (fiction or non-fiction) to imagine that the end of the plot is the end of the story. 'What happened at the end' too often drives a story toward a final event--a concluding moment rendered in action--instead of an ending grounded in an ethical or emotional change in the lives of your characters.

Poetry, with its imagistic and/or musical endings, can offer different models for the final note of a piece of…

Most poets I know read all kinds of prose writing, novels (especially), short stories, memoir, essay. And while I know a few prose writers who are regular and enthusiastic readers of poetry, too many seem to find poetry, especially contemporary poetry, a little off-putting. Too much work, they sometimes seem to say. I would argue, though, that the rewards are there, for all writers. That poetry offers superb models for learning about the richness of imagery and metaphor, about…