The same can be said when I’m writing in multiple voices. Each character speaks to me in a distinct voice and each voice becomes as familiar and particular to me as the voice of people in my life. The supreme challenge for me in Bronx, though, was writing each character’s poetry in his or her own voice. That was dicey!

Before writing each poem, I read and re-read that character’s prose monologue in order to get a fix on that particular voice. Then I would begin to craft the poem.

The most difficult poem of all to construct was “News at Five,” my attempt at creating a cipher or poem in multiple voices. I knew I wanted to use a rap pattern for this poem, but I didn’t know much about this form. I don’t listen to rap myself, but my agent does. She offered to loan me several choice CDs to listen to, and I took her up on the offer. In the end it wasn’t so much the music I paid attention to as the liner notes. I studied them to dissect the patterns and incorporated one of them to create my own version of a cipher.

After all the stories were told, and all the poems were written, the hardest part, as always, was deciding on the ending. Life has no neat and tidy endings, and I like my books to reflect the reality that life is circular. Consequently, I like to leave each story open-ended, as if it could go on, because it could! Bronx Masquerade was no different. I ended with a window on the next school term, and the next prospective class of poets.