A Life on the Margins: Maxine Hong Kingston, 'I Love a Broad Margin to My Life,' at the Writer's Center
In her new memoir, Chinese-American novelist Maxine Hong Kingston declares, “I’ve said what I have to say./I’ll stop, and look at things I called/distractions. Become reader of the world,/no more writer of it.” That’s right; Kingston — whose 1976 “The Woman Warrior” is a staple of college lit classes — is suggesting she may have penned her last book. In “I Love a Broad Margin to My Life” ($25, Knopf), Kingston departs from her usual prose and writes in dreamy verse. In this perhaps final adieu, she puts her characters, including the Woman Warrior, through the same aging processes she is facing.
What inspired you to write “I Love a Broad Margin to My Life”?
I was having my 65th birthday, and I thought about coming to the end of my life and what I want to do with the rest of it. What else do I have to say to the world? If I want to say something, I’d better get it done now.
Why did you revisit characters like your archetypal Woman Warrior, the heroine who’s also enslaved by her male-dominated culture?
I had imaginary friends as a child, and as an adult, as a writer, my imaginary friends were my fictional characters. I wanted to have them come with me on the journey. I also wanted to tell what happens to my fictional characters in their older age.
Why did you write this book in free verse rather than your usual prose?
I’ve been working with prose for so long. [The 1989 book] “Tripmaster Monkey” took me 10 years to write; [the 2003 book] “The Fifth Book of Peace” took 10 years. When I turned 65, I thought, “I can’t afford to spend a decade per book.” So, I decided to quicken the pace. I find that prose is like a workhorse — I have to create entire scenes, and I have to get the setting and all of the furniture. But for the poetry, I can skip around, fly from here to there. It’s easier, and it’s more fun.
You’re translating a book of poems by your father, as well as poems he wrote in response to your work. How is that going?
In [the 1980 book] “China Men,” I challenge my father and say, “I’m going to write you a story, and you have to speak up if I’ve got you wrong.” He was such a silent man, but he took the Chinese edition and wrote poetry in response to my writing. There’s an old Chinese poetic tradition where poets write commentary on one another’s work, and my father did that with me. I want to translate that, and maybe I can reply to him.
You seem determined to make the most of your free time. Do you plan to continue writing?
I am going to see if I can let go of writing. It’s a choice I made for myself when I was a child, and I lived that way for 70 years. What if I just let it go and see what comes? I’ve always enjoyed painting and drawing, gardening, needlework. It’s a time when I can do those things.
» The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda; Fri., 7:30 p.m., $15; 301-654-8664. (Bethesda)
Written by Express contributor Amy Cavanaugh
