She may be best known by most people for her novel The Color Purple, which won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and which later became a hugely popular movie.

But Alice Walker has also written dozens of other books, both fiction and nonfiction, including many collections of poetry. 

I met and interviewed her several times over the years, including in tghe spring of 2003 when she published a book of poetry called Absolute Trust in the Goodness of The Earth.

Our conversation took place just hours before the Us and other nations launched the attacks that initiated the Iraq war. And that was weighing heavily on her mind.