Maxine Hong Kingston, the award-winning author of The Woman Warrior, is best known for her prose writing. But in an appearance yesterday afternoon she ventured into new territory: poetry.

"Getting from prose to poetry is like letting go of the side of the pool," Kingston said.

Kingston's talk in Science Center C, entitled "I Call on the Muses of Poetry, and Here's What I Get," is one of three talks she is giving this week that focus on her foray into poetry.

Kingston read to the audience of about 80 people from a poetry journal she kept this spring for over an hour, often pausing to motion with her arm when she wanted the audience to breathe deeply.

"It felt good because I could see that everyone in the audience seemed to be my readers," she said. "It was a meeting with my readers."

Her journal dealt with everyday life, describing impressions of nature, dinner with friends and bouts of insomnia, among other topics.

The journal selections often incorporated poetic elements into a narrative-like form.

Phillips Professor of Early American History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who introduced Kingston, praised her writing talent.