William Alfred was confronted with deadlines when he wrote poetry for a magazine at the age of 18. "And I always put everything off untill the night before --as someone does with a term theme," he said. "Maybe that's why I don't care much for the poetry when I look back over it."

Now the Harvard University associate professor is writing plays. "The Agamemnon" was printed in 1952 in "Botteghe Oscure," a magazine run by an Italian nobleman who lives on a "street of dark shops." Then the play was published in book form, and it will be produced in New York in the fall.

"I'm looking forward to a fight over it," he said. "You know how producers and directors like to rewrite."

His newest play, "Hogan's Goat," will be published in a book also containing collected poems. It had a tryout run last winter, but Alfred said there are parts he will rewrite. He said he is willing to rewrite for producers and directors if he himself sees that something is not working well in the rehearsal.

Alfred rewrote a television play for Omnibus nine times--but most of it was done after the production.

This play, "The Runaways," centered around an innocent boy who comes into the complexities of life.

"But I could never get into it because I don't like the guy. Maybe it's because I just can't understand him," he said.

Alfred began writing plays when he was still working for a little magazine at Brooklyn College. The drive to attempt play-writing came from an interest in dialogue which he found creeping into his poetry.

After summer school Alfred plans to work on a straight comedy.

"No more tragedy for a while," he added.