What do you mean this Chinese restaurant doesn't serve barbeque?

Last week Steve Moore and charming Natasha were on the interstate between Chicago and New York deciding their future.

Without a collaborator/patsy to help with the show I thought we were doomed to a week without banter.

To the rescue Amanda Bales M.F.A. sprung to the rescue. Not only was Amanda the first guest on the first edition of "Line Break" almost a year ago, she had also defended her thesis the day before.

What a trooper. If we had more women like her the war in Iraq would be over.

We discussed features and techniques common to both verse and prose. Amanda spoke at length and with erudition about the identity writers create in their work irrespective of genre.

Amanda began by reading Heather McHugh's narrative poem, "What He Thought." For the most part, Amanda told us, fiction writers are warned to never begin with extensive explication. But, in McHugh's case it establishes the character's identity through her voice.

When I asked Amanda if she, as a prose writer, was ever frustrated with the disregard most poets pay to narrative.

"No!" Amanda shot across the mic. "That would be like going into a Chinese restaurant" she began waving her arms like a spoiled lunatic, "and being really pissed off because they don't have good barbecue."

Indeed, Ms. Bales. That is exactly what it would be like.