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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Soverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

I'm very happy to have as my guest today, Fanny Howe.

Fanny Howe has written many novels, books of poetry, and books of essays and memoir.

Her new book is called Love and I. It's a beautiful book. It's published by Grey Wolf Press.

Dan Chasen, a literary critic, said that the title, in this title, Love is Zero, as in Tennis.

And so Love and I is zero and one. Had you constructed it that way, or had he surprised you?

I had not thought of the tennis connection at all. I was surprised. But the strange thing is,

it works. It's just like when you do a crossword puzzle and you put in

the wrong word and it's fine. Everything else falls in. It works so well. And yet the poems are

about love and the failure of love and the transformation of love over the years.

You're now nearly 80, and you're writing about the transformation of love over these 60 years of writing poetry.

To what degree does interpretation and misinterpretation matter?

To me, it doesn't actually matter because that sort of point, when I could say the poem was done for me is conclusive

and it doesn't matter what happens afterwards. So I think the other night I was saying I basically

would write it down and throw it over my shoulder and not look back to see what people say

...