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A. I think the world has the right amount of poets. More people would turn to poetry if the poetry that was available were more exciting and spoke more to their lives rather than the anemic, base, listless, redundant poetry that apologizes and hates itself. People do read poetry in times of crises. Writing has a healing power. But in all times, there are few real poets.
Q. You talk about giving your women characters a mythology of their own. What is yours?
A. One of my characters says, "To be one woman, truly, wholly, is to be all women. Tend one garden and you will birth worlds." A garden requires discipline to tend it. It needs flexibility, stamina. I think I was also talking about the garden as being a metaphor for art, a life well lived.
I try to do that, to dare to be an individual, an eccentric. In America we don't have a tradition of eccentricity. In this society we're just supposed to go until we drop. We don't even have nervous breakdowns anymore. We have episodes, and then we're expected to be back at work on Monday.
Q. Is the American novel healthy?
A. It is evolving as it recognizes other accents, other rhythms, other struggles. There was a moment when certain East Coast urban men told us everything about the universe that we could know. Then the trade routes shifted. I think that the great mesa to stand on now is on the Pacific Coast. Not a mountain, but a mesa.