I'm just wondering if any of these characters have changed you in some way. I think that things I read change the way I feel more than things I'm writing. Setting is such a wonderful part of both of your novels that I think of it always as a character. They're real gardens, but the toads are imaginary. I'm hardly ever aware of plot in your books because they just sort of flow.
Plots are weird.
I never think in terms of plot. Well, there are sort of two things. I know that you spent some time with poetry, and I'd like you to talk a little about that. In some ways, doing the autobiographies or the biographies will be more like the poetry than fiction is, though, because there's a selection. Martha discusses William Faulkner, Lorine Niedecker, James Hazzard, Carson McCullers, William Stafford, and William Maxwell.