Stories In the Hazy Days of May
- At May 07, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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We had a lovely day today, warm and bright, and I saw a cignet in the water – just one ugly swan-duckling, pale and crying, just like the story! I also saw that the barn swallows and stellar jays were back, a sure sign that spring has sprung, along with the lilacs blooming and the beginning of the peonies. Amid all of this, every day I am watching the new townhouse be torn apart, repainted, floors ripped up and replaced, all the preparations for when we move in – a bit stressful, but happy, these preparations. I bought the least practical thing today – a beautiful glass and copper hummingbird feeder, but I thought it was important in making the new place a home, a place for the hummingbirds. It’s important to have a space for hummingbirds.
This article made me think long and hard about the adjunct teaching I’ve been doing for almost four years now. You wouldn’t guess it, from my being a poet and all, but part of me is deeply practical, and cares about things like paying my student loans and my new mortgage off, you know, eventually. The practical occupations of writers are getting fewer and farther between these days – fewer jobs for journalists, copywriters, teachers, professors. A perilous time for poets.
So what have you been doing with your May days? I am thinking change is in the air. The supermoon is making us all dizzy with it. My little brother posts pictures on Facebook from Venice, Italy, and all the pictures look like illustrations in an old-fashioned book. What kind of fairy tale are we writing for ourselves? A new home, a new life, new beginnings, hummingbirds in the white lilacs.
Winner of the big Poetry Month Giveaway, a new review, a new home
- At May 02, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
Congratulations to Molly of www.mapsandpoetry.blogspot.com, who is the winner of the great poetry month giveaway! She’s won a copy of my second book, She Returns to the Floating World, Steady My Gaze, and a third mystery book/lit mag! Hope you enjoy, Molly!
Wonderful to receive a copy of Winter 2012 Southern Humanities Review, which has a beautiful long review of She Returns to the Floating World by Celia Lisset Alvarez. Thank you Celia, for the thoughtful review. (Oh, and remember to check out her blog for an interview!)
Well, we’ve turned in the certified check and signed our paperwork, and tonight is our final walkthrough. Hopefully tomorrow we get our new keys!
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
