First Day of Summer and Summer Reading Resolutions, Poems in the lovely F(r)iction and Redactions

Welcome! It’s the first day of summer (it hasn’t felt much like summer here – while the rest of the country has been pelted with high heat, we’ve been putting on sweaters for 60 degree grey days here in Seattle) and the beginning of my summer reading resolutions. One of the goals I have for the summer is to watch television less and read more books. I’ve already started doubling up on books by the bed and audiobooks in the car, on my phone, and everywhere else it would be convenient to grab a book. When the weather’s nice here, you have to take advantage of it, hence my cancelling of Netflix and avoiding the temptation to keep the television on at random. Seattle’s summers are usually splendid – lots of wildlife, finally clear views of mountains, green trees unshrouded with mist. Just this week, we’ve seen deer in the backyard, baby bunnies on the street, eagles and herons in the air and an otter in Sammamish river, along with plenty of ducklings. You sort of have to grab the ability to walk outside without heavy clothing while you can.

Anyway, in keeping with my reading goals, I took several bookstore buying sprees, including one at local poetry store Open Books, and another at University of Washington’s bookstore, which really has wonderful poetry and fiction and local non-fiction sections. This is a picture of visiting writer Julie Brooks Barbour with me in the poetry section of the UW bookstore! (She also really liked the manga section!) And then after we dropped Julie off, we discovered the beautiful Renton Gene Coulon Memorial park – right by Boeing’s R&D building, hence the plane in the background! And a picture of my kitten Sylvia with other cat Shakespeare with my Open Books purchases. (Hothouse by Karyna McGlynn, There are More Beautiful Things than Beyonce by Morgan Parker, and Jane Satterifeld’s Apocalypse Mix.)

And it also seems to be the season for contributor copies! This last week I got a copy of the beautifully designed F(r)iction, as well as the Gambling/Surrealism issue of Redactions. Here’s the kitten Sylvia modeling both, and a page from my own illustrated work in F(r)iction. (Did I mention Sylvia has started a literary Twitter feed – @literarykittens? She welcomes pictures of other literary kittens and promises to retweet and like!)

I also finished up most copyedits of my PR for Poets book, almost ready to turn in to my editors at Two Sylvias! Now I’ve got two book reviews in front of me, Beth Ann Fennelly and Victoria Chang’s new books. So, do you have any summer reading/writing/submitting goals you’d like to share?

Port Townsend and Poet Trips, Rain Taxi review

Just home from a several-day trip, I woke today to see that there was a wonderful review of my latest book, Field Guide to the End of the World, in the very esteemed journal of reviews, Rain Taxi! The Summer issue, which just came out, contains a review by Sarah Liu of the new book. “In Gailey’s field guide, the language of the body is subsumed in that of the apocalyptic and vice versa. The speaker-as-guide of her poems provides a dialectic of tension and comfort…” Thanks Sarah and Rain Taxi! There’s also a great interview with Denise Duhamel in the issue. Here’s a picture of the kitten, Sylvia, posing with the summer issue. Check it out!

Kitten Sylvia with her copy of Rain Taxi

Just got back from a trip out to visit my poet friend Kelli Russell Agodon in her beautiful sea-view home over the water, then on to a couple of days in Port Townsend. It was wonderful to spend some time out with a poet friend and then in nature, enjoying the ocean, watching the heron, seals, deer, eagles, goldfinches, and observing everything in bloom along the journey – from roses to rhododendron to red hot pokers and cherry blossoms. Travel is a little more difficult for us these days than it used to be, but it’s good to sometimes have a change of scenery. We used to live in Port Townsend – now it’s been about ten years – but the town still feels like a former home, with all the nostalgia. Of course, since we got caught in a ferry backup on the way out, and a Hood Canal Bridge closure on the way back, the irritating realities and isolation – and the fact that I seem to be allergic to everything in town, from the picturesque historic old buildings to the local paper mill – it also helped us remember why we moved away. Coming home to the much less exciting scenery of Woodinville, I felt peaceful – happy that we had made the trip, and that we were home again, where we belonged. But if you want to see what makes the Northwest beautiful, Port Townsend isn’t a bad place to start. Also, the shops – including the Imprint Bookstore – are a bonus in an area where you could spend your entire time outdoors. There are colorful umbrellas, great book selections (I think I came home with about ten more books!) and more to browse through if it turns grey and rainy.
I also re-read The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald, about the trials of chicken farming in the thirties in the Port Townsend area. Betty MacDonald was a rarity in her day – a woman writer who was fairly financially successful – she also wrote children’s books and even sold movie rights and created the characters “Ma and Pa Kettle” – and was also sued several times. It was 1. way more racist than I remembered and 2. while I delighted in the descriptions of the towns and the gardening and the seasons, the book became much more for me the sad portrait of failed marriage and failed farm than the lighthearted humor book I had remembered. I had bought the local book “Looking for Betty MacDonald” for my mom, which had rekindled my interest in the subject.

: Glenn and I at Fort Warden

: in front of Discovery Bay view

: Roses at Chetzemoka park

: Glenn and me at North Beach

: Under inexplicable cherry blossoms

: Pirate Ship in thre Bay

: Poppies

: Glenn and me in the rhododentdron garden at Fort Warden

: Discovery Bay Sunset

: Port Townsend deer

: With Kelli, waterfront

New Poems in UCity Review, Wonder Woman, some news, Seattle landscapes and fluffy cats and cars!

First of all, my thoughts and prayers to the victim’s of yesterday’s attacks in London and the victims and families of victims in Portland. It hasn’t been very long since my last blog post, which was right after the attacks at Manchester. There has been too much terrible in the news lately.

I’ve got four new poems in the brand-new issue of UCity Review – you can read them here. Two of them were inspired by the recent accident at Hanford, and the other two are the musings about luck and destiny.

In other news, since I last wrote, I got an MRI and the test results (no change in the liver lesions, which is pretty good news – not as good as them disappearing, but definitely better than growth or spreading.) I decided to lease a new car, an experiment since we have not been a two-car family in over ten years (as you know, I struggled with some neurological issues for some time that limited my mobility, but physical therapy and training have really improved – as have safety features that make it a little easier to drive!) I feel like a teenager vrooming down my street. I forgot how fun it is to drive! It was also something I promised myself when I was diagnosed last year with that terminal cancer (the terminal part might not be coming so quickly after all!) – that I was going to be able to drive myself around again. I doubled up on my physical therapy and here I am!

The reading in Tacoma was fun. It was great to meet Kendra and I got to hang out a little with my artist friend Michaela Eaves. It was a beautiful night to be in Tacoma, too – and King’s Books is always fun to visit. Here are a couple of pics. Also, me with the new car and I didn’t mention that right after I got the car, I stopped into Woodinville’s Barnes and Nobles and got to chatting with one of the employees, and he showed me my book on the shelf!

: Michaela and me

: Kendra and I with our books!

: Me with Field Guide at Woodinville’s Barnes & Nobles!

: Posing with the new blue car

We’ve had some beautiful weather and you just want to capture all the fleeting beauty of the flowers that bloom for a week under the blue skies that peek out in May and early June. Also, my cat is very fluffy. That has to be attested to in pictorial form every so often.

: Me at the Japanese Garden

: Roses at the Herbfarm in Woodinville

: Krkland’s Carillon Point in bloom

: Fluffy!

: Glenn and I under wisteria at the Japanese Garden

It was Wonder Woman Day yesterday, and I’m getting ready to see the (long overdue) new move tonight. I’m so excited. I’m going to post my poem, “Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon,” here along with a movie poster and a bit of art I got at Seattle’s ComicCon years ago.