DIALOGUES WITH NORTHWEST WRITERS JOHN KEEBLE TOM ROBBINS SANDRA MCPHERSON RICHARD HUGO LAWSON FUSAO INADA URSULA LE GUIN LAURA JENSEN JAMES WELCH MARY BARNARD Portrait Etchings by and Interview with LAVERNE KRAUSE I know what north means. In Seattle the usual flow is north. Winds are usually from the south. Clouds go north. Trees and grass bend north. Big ships leaving port sail north to exit from Puget Sound through the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The Duwamish river flows north. Longfellow Creek, the first creek I ever saw or fished, flows north. As a child, I believed life was a northern journey and at some unknown point in the north, all things end. The river found acceptance in the sea. from “The Real West Marginal Way” In Memory of RICHARD HUGO 1923-1982 JOHN KEEBLE SANDRA MCPHERSON LAWSON FUSAO INADA LAURA JENSEN TOM ROBBINS LA VERNE KRAUSE RICHARD HUGO URSULA LE GU1N JAMES WELCH MARY BARNARD DIALOGUES WITH NORTHWEST WRITERS This book constitutes Volume 20, Numbers 2 & 3 of NORTHWEST REVIEW ISSN 0029-3423 Copyright © 1982 by NORTHWEST REVIEW BOOKS First Edition All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright conventions. Published in the United States by North­ west Review Books. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 82-19063. Printed and bound in the United States of America. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Dialogues with Northwest writers. (Northwest review; v, 20, no. 2-3) Interviews with: Mary Barnard, Richard Hugo, Lawson Fusao Inada, Laura Jensen, John Keeble, Ursula Le Guin, Sandra McPherson, Tom Robbins, James Welch, and LaVerne Krause. Bibliography. 1. Authors, American—Northwestern States—Interviews. 2. Authors, American—20th century— 3. Northwestern States— Intellectual life. 4. American literature—Northwestern States. I. Witte, John, 1948- . II. Series. AP2.N855 vol. 20, no. 2-3 081s [810’.9’977] 82-19063 [PS282] ISBN 0-918402-06-9 IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors wish to acknowledge the invaluable help of Anita Helle, William Kittredge, Ralph Salisbury, Greg Simon, Fred­ erick Newberry, George Wickes and Louise Westling, Cecelia Hagen, Michael Strelow, and Bill Bevis. Thanks also to Michael Stamm, Marilyn Warner, J. D. Brown and Scott Orme for techni­ cal assistance. Finally, thanks to the assistant editors and staff of Northwest Review for their dedication. This project was made possible by grants from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency created by an act of Congress in 1965. “The Pleiades,” by Mary Barnard, reprinted by permission; ® The1966 New Yorker Magazine, Inc. “Bannerman’s Island,” by Richard Hugo, originally appearedNew in England Review (Vol. 5, no. 1, Autumn, 1982); reprinted by permission. “Kite,” by Laura Jensen, ®1982, originally appearedMemory in , Dragon Gate, Inc.; re­ printed by permission. Yellowfish, by John Keeble, ® 1978; passages reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. The Word for the World is Forest, by Ursula I.e Guin, ® 1972, 1973; first appeared inAgain, Dangerous Visions; reprinted by permission. “If the Cardinals Were Like Us,” by Sandra McPherson, copyright ® 1980Antaeus; by re­ printed by permission. Still Life with Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins, copyright ® 1980 by Tibetan Peach Pie Incorpo­ rated; passage reprinted by permission of Bantam Books, Inc. All rights reserved. Winter in the Blood, by James Welch, ® 1974; passage reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v CONTENTS Dedication ........................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ........................................................................... v INTERVIEWS JOHN KEEBLE excerpt fromCrab C a n o................................................................... n 3 excerpt fromYellowjish ........................................................................... 3 Dialogue with John Keeble, by Frederick Newberry . 7 SANDRA MCPHERSON “If the Cardinals were Like Us” ........................................................27 Dialogue with Sandra McPherson, by Cecelia Hagen . 29 LAWSON FUSAO INADA selections fromJapan ......................................................................................57 Dialogue with Lawson Fusao Inada, by Ralph Salisbury . 60 LAURA JENSEN “Kite” ......................................................................................................77 Dialogue with Laura Jensen, by Greg Simon .... 79 TOM ROBBINS excerpt fromStill Life with W oodpecker................................................95 Dialogue with Tom Robbins, by Michael Strelow . 97 LAVERNE KRAUSE Dialogue with LaVerne Krause, by Deb Casey . • 105 selections fromArtists and Friends Portfolio ...................................... 117 RICHARD HUGO “Bannerman’s Island” .............................................................................127 Dialogue with Richard Hugo, by William Kittredge . 128 URSULA LE GUIN excerpt fromThe Word for the World is F o r e...............................145 s t Dialogue with Ursula Le Guin, by George Wickes and Louise W estlin g ....................................................................................147 JAMES WELCH excerpt fromWinter in the B lo o d...............................................................161 Dialogue with James Welch, by Bill B e v...................................... i s 163 MARY BARNARD “The Pleiades” ....................................................................................187 Dialogue with Mary Barnard, by Anita Helle . 188 NORTHWEST REVIEW COLLOQUIUM Ann Stanford .....................................................................200 William Van Wert .....................................................................204 Kenneth O. Hanson .....................................................................211 Robert Taylor, Jr. .....................................................................218 Jim Heynen .....................................................................222 Betsy Adams .....................................................................226 Maria Flook .....................................................................228 Marilyn Burkhardt .....................................................................231 Michael Martone .....................................................................235 Luis Omar Salinas .....................................................................238 Patricia Henley .....................................................................242 Robert Crum .....................................................................246 Craig Lesley .....................................................................249 Patricia Goedicke .....................................................................254 H. E. Francis . .....................................................................260 Thelma Brown .....................................................................264 Denise Cassens .....................................................................268 David Walker .....................................................................272 Kevin Mcllvoy .....................................................................277 Contributors’ Notes 280 1 photograph by Frederick Newberry John Keeble from CRAB CANON This Saskatchewan farm is in the shape of a right triangle, the hypotenuse of which runs southwest by northeast. A two-story brick house is located midpoint on a hypothetical abscissa drawn horizontally from the northeastern corner to the western side. The house is tied to the northwestern corner and hence to the in­ adequate pavement which leads east into Moose Jaw by a narrow gravel road which is forever losing to weeds, shrubs, and over­ hanging limbs. North to south, the Hunger River bisects the triangle. The river runs fast and deep through the thick forest which spreads across the northwestern corner, past the house, through two hundred sixty acres of wheat field, then spreads and exposes its rocky bot­ tom where the terrain becomes rough and untillable. That terrain culminates in two craggy foothills which thrust upwards at the southern and eastern corners of the farm, their naked, striated faces forcing the stream aside to the extreme east. The stream’s erosion has made the two precipices appear faintly convex. from YELLOWFISH Yesterday he had traveled the country on a motorcycle, in con­ trol, insofar as the cycle controlled even the landscape through which he moved, and so limited it, so designed it, or his perception of it. Today he found all control taken away. Lily held the wheel now. She dealt the hand. All the weight had slid to her side. Earlier, she had insulted his sexuality. No matter how considerate he might try to be of her difficulty, what really lay at the root of his 3 uncertainty was his desire to master her, or someone, or some­ thing equal, and so restore himself. He fingered a zipper of his jac­ ket and stared straight ahead through the windshield, the light of his eyes, set wide apart in his forehead, choked, inquisitorial, monomaniac, and carnal. He hated feeling like a fool. The sleet shifted back to snow as they left Spokane and thick­ ened as they began to climb the Bitterroot Range. Sandman’s ears popped again. Lily didn’t talk. He didn’t talk. Just beyond the Idaho border they entered Post Falls, then turned left, north, and passed across a broad plateau—the Coeur d’Alene prairie. As they progressed, the mountain forest encroached steadily