Poems in Prairie Schooner, Poets in the Park, A Summer Twitter #PoetParty and More

Sylvia poses with Prairie Schooner

Taking a Break for Poetry

It’s been such a terrible week, I’ve been so frustrated I’ve not only called my representatives and donated but have been posting political things on Facebook (a recipe for disaster, eh?) in the hopes some of the people in my family and circles who are republicans or moderates might see “the light.”

Poems in Prairie Schooner

But there are still good things. A wonderful new issue of Prairie Schooner came in the mail. The issue starts with wonderful poems by Alicia Ostriker, and if you look, it has two poems from me as well in there somewhere (“Self-Portrait as February Morning,” and “When I Thought I Was Dying It Was Easy”) I really enjoyed reading the whole issue, which contained some truly inspired work (and a few pieces from friends – always welcome!)

Strawberry Moons and Poet Parties on Twitter

Yesterday there was a beautiful full moon and sunset over Mt. Rainier. I didn’t catch the Strawberry moon early enough to get its rosy hue but it was still ghostly in the clouds. It’s been gloomy – like my mood, like the news – the last few days, I’ve been fighting off a virus going around, and catching up on reading and writing after last week’s debacle.

This upcoming Sunday I’m hosting a special Twitter #PoetParty (6 PM Pacific, 9 PM Eastern) with guest Dr. Erika Dreifus of the Practicing Writing Blog, where we’ll be talking about places to send in the summertime (and more!) So bring your questions, follow the hashtags and we’ll lose ourselves in poetry talk for a few minutes.

 

Poets in the Park 2018

And speaking of losing ourselves in poetry for a while, Redmond’s Poets in the Park festival is coming up July 7 at Anderson Park! I’ll be giving a talk at 1 PM on PR for Poets, and I’m part of a reading at 3 PM with Jack Straw current poets and alumni. It should be fun – see here for more information!  It is one of the best events that happens on the East side of Seattle, just for poetry. If you’ve never been come out! Redmond’s full of trendy ice-cream and indie coffee shops now.

PR for Poets And America and Poetry and All

Besides giving a talk on the subject next week at the Poets in the Park festival, in the new issue of Poets & Writers (the one with Terrance Hayes on the cover) which also features a fascinating interview with fiction writer Lauren Groff, there is hidden inside a real-live ad for PR for Poets.

And I also had a nice feature on The Book Connection with a little excerpt from PR for Poets.

I’m still waiting to hear about my sixth book manuscript which is still out with a few publishers. (It has been out with one publisher for a year and six months now!) I had a few acceptances for poems that came in to balance out a month or so of straight rejections. I know this is not the most important thing on the landscape – not even on my own landscape. My father’s still slowly recovering from pneumonia, my own MS likes to act up every time it gets hot, reminding me “I’m still here,” the news is full of shootings again, of bad men being in power doing bad things. It made me think of Langston Hughes “Let America Be America Again” with its powerful refrain “America never was America to me.” Can America be made better? Can we get good people to care and to vote for good people? Can some kind of conscience spring up and be stronger than the lowest common denominator, prejudice and money? Maybe America was never that great. But I know it can be better than it is right now.

After the Storm, and a New Review of PR for Poets

After the Storm, Pt 1

Thank you to everyone for their good thoughts last week. My dad is finally home from the hospital and recovering slowly. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. The shot is from Seattle’s Japanese Garden, solstice edition. Only a few blooms left – water lilies and water iris are the last things to bloom at the Japanese garden – so hurry out and get a look.

Besides my dad being in the hospital, having multiple specialist appointments last week, we had a nightmare storm of terrible government stuff – children being locked in abandoned Walmarts, parents having no idea where their children were taken or when they would be reunited, etc – it was just a rough week. My MS symptoms acted up and I had to take a break from Facebook (although I was able to contact my local representatives. Letter writing is old-fashioned but effective!) I also had to wrangle problems with not getting essential MS prescriptions for added fun (and the mere thought of switching PCPs is stressing me out.)

New Review of PR for Poets

And I woke up today to a lovely new review of PR for Poets up at Suko’s Notebook, part of the Poetic Book Tour. This one was particularly interesting to me because it provided the perspective of a non-poet on the book! It was a really thoughtfully-written review.

After the Storm, Pt II

Today is cool and rainy, after a beautiful solstice weekend punctuated by another thunderstorm last night. I got a couple of shots of late June blooms, goldfinch visitors, and Glenn and I taking a short break from the stress of last week at one of my favorite local retreats, the Japanese Gardens.

I’m catching up with correspondence from last week and my reading, including the new issue of Poets & Writers (I especially enjoyed the interview with Lauren Groff and the feature on Terrance Hayes) and an interesting book called Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. Essays by some problematic writers are included (inc. Sherman Alexie and Junot Diaz) but essays by Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, Elizabeth Gilbert and many others made this an easy and inspirational read, and I needed a little bit of that after last week. Plus I liked the title. I actually wrote a poem and worked on my sixth poetry manuscript and sent it out to a new place. And we had a friend’s good news to celebrate – Natasha Moni won the Floating Bridge Press Prize this year, so looking forward to seeing that!

What a Difference a Year Makes

I actually meditated on the differences between last year’s solstice – still reeling from a stage IV liver cancer diagnosis, right before the MS flare that sent me to the hospital and left me house-bound for several months with problems eating, talking, and walking and this year’s – relatively calm, despite the first paragraph of this post. Last solstice, I had a coyote sighting on my street – this year, it was a pair of quail and an immature eagle, and seeing a turtle laying eggs in the Japanese garden. I’m learning, slowly, how to manage symptoms, avoiding MS triggers like stress and heat, and after having to be “up” for a day, taking a day of rest. Being thankful that my liver tumors have been “stable.” I’ve learned to appreciate the good days, the small things like the visits of goldfinches and hummingbirds, time spent talking poetry with a friend. I’ve also learned I have to prioritize things that bring joy, because life will certainly bring you enough stress and pain, so it’s important to take an afternoon to just focus on writing, on one other person, or on the changes of the seasons. I am trying to schedule these things in between the necessary evils.  I’m trying not to get overwhelmed by the dark.

Crisis Mode, My review of Oceanic up at the Rumpus, Redactions New Issue, Lit World Gender Representation, Crisis Mode Again

Purple iris in Willows Lodge back garden

Crisis Mode

Hey guys, it’s beautiful outside but I’ve been in crisis mode since my last post. My Dad’s been in the hospital with pneumonia and he hasn’t been let out yet. It’s tough – I’ve had pneumonia a bunch of times, so I kind of know how it goes, but he’s older and has never had pneumonia before, so it’s all new to him. It’s also the fact that I’m stuck here while he’s across the country but MS makes it tough to travel. Dang.

Also, of course, the heartbeat of tragedy in our country as young children are put into cages and ignored and lost. This cannot be ignored.

What can I do about either situation? It feels like very little. Not enough.

 

 

Oceanic Review in The Rumpus and New Issue of Redactions

In good news, my review of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s newest book from Copper Canyon, Oceanic, is up at The Rumpus. Oceanic is a wonderful book to read right now – both intense, crisis-minded and hopeful.

The newest issue of Redactions is out – and several friends are in there with me, including Steve Mueske and Kelli Russell Agodon. My poem, “Grief Language,” was about trying to put into words my feelings about the terminal cancer diagnosis I received eighteen months ago. Here’s a picture of Sylvia, my kitten, a vase of sweetpeas, and the new issue, all together.

I’m still waiting to hear from several presses about my latest book manuscript, which deals with the cancer diagnosis and then the MS diagnosis, along with apocalyptic news and weather events. I’m hoping my sixth poetry book finds a home soon. And the VIDA numbers just came out this year, which actually made me feel depressed this year – not enough representation for women, for women of color, for the disabled. Come on, literary community – you need to do better. I’m thinking about where I’m spending money on lit mags and books more carefully these days – who am I supporting?

More Crisis Mode

So, it’s been beautiful but hot here – record-breaking heat across most of the country, which is very bad for MS patients, who are warned to avoid heat. So I’ve been dutifully going to specialist appointments every day this week and last week, trying to avoid going out during the beautiful sunny days as much as possible, not stress out about the state of the country or my Dad’s health (because stress also brings on MS symptoms – whoops!)

It makes me think about how Americans deal with the moral crises going on in their country now, how close we are to creating new internment camps like America did in World War II for the Japanese-Americans, like the Germans did for the folks in their community who were too Jewish, too Catholic, or just didn’t fall in line enough. Remember no one really put up a fuss in either situation. Who knows how ashamed they were afterwards? I think now might be a good time to put up a fuss. We still have freedom of speech and we should use it. Call your congressperson, or write to them, and don’t let your Trump-voting friends get away with parroting lies about how they’re “just carrying out the law” or how the Bible justifies it (I’m a former Sunday School teacher who knows the Bible back and forth, and I can saw without the equivocation that it does not. And a lot of Christians agree with me.) It’s unacceptable. And who are we as poets if we don’t agitate at least a little? I mean. It’s sort of our job. We are supposed to remind people of souls, empathy, human capacity for good or evil.

In this body, which has become increasingly fragile as I age, I worry I can’t do enough – for others, for my country, for my dad. What can my contribution be? Well, I can at least not stay silent. I can at least let my politicians who care about my vote know where I stand. I can let my Dad know I’m thinking of him with care-packages and advice. I feel like I’m on the verge of yelling or crying almost all the time these days. None of it is enough. I can write my way through it – probably the only thing I feel competent to do right now.

How do you get through Crisis Mode? How do you take care of yourself and still help take care of the world? How do you, as a poet feel we should respond?

New Review of PR for Poets, Mermaid, Faerie Magazine, and Me, and the Latest in Poetry Life, Early Summer Edition

Two goldfinches with sunflowers

Early Summer in Seattle

A little peek at the change of seasons – here, sunflowers are blooming and they’ve attracted goldfinches! Another sign of summer? Butterflies and…we went to an outdoor concert (I haven’t been healthy enough to go to a concert for over a year and a half!) at beautiful Marymoor Park – KT Tunstall, Better Than Ezra, and The Barenaked Ladies – where the first two acts were really fun, and I caught a guitar pick from the lead singer of Better Than Ezra, but then – it started raining a few drops, then boom! We were evacuated because of lightning! If you’ve ever seen a large park full of concert goers emergency evacuate, it’s a mess – and I was holding a metal cane and a metal umbrella – talk about lightning rods! I also got to attend the prenuptial reading at Elliot Bay for Kaveh Akbar and Paige Taylor, who invited a ton of friends to read with them at Elliot Bay – it was like a baby AWP! Much less lightning. Poetry folks everywhere and standing room only. What a fun way to celebrate the beginning of a marriage.

 

New Review of PR for Poets at the Soapy Violinist

Thanks to Toni Colleen of The Soapy Violinist for this new review of PR for Poets! This is part of the Poetic Book Tour blog tour this summer for PR for Poets! I really appreciate these reviews – it’s such a weird little niche book that I was worried we wouldn’t have any! But I’m happy to see them adding up.

Mermaids, Faerie, Sylvia and Me!

I know I posted a little bit about this on the last post, but I finally got my contributor copy of Faerie Magazine’s Mermaid issue yesterday, and it is beautiful! I have three illustrated poems in it (including one about mermaids) and the whole issue is just really fun to read – from mermaid makeup to learning a bit of mermaid folklore. I got a picture of little Sylvia – sadly, not in a cat mermaid costume though – with the Mermaid issue!

The Poetry Life, Early Summer Edition

Ah, summertime is almost here – the weather (despite storms) is getting warmer, the days are getting long, summer reading periods are open…I just got two more rejections today, one from a grant/fellowship I was really hoping to get, but I have such bad luck with grants, I am thinking about never applying again! I just don’t have the gene for grant applications – ugh, I hate them so much I would rather fill out dental forms. Or taxes.

I’m really hoping to hear positive news from a certain publisher that’s been holding my latest poetry manuscript for, ahem, a year and five months at this point! If not, I’m ready to revise and send it out some more. I’m feeling that the book is “ready…”

I also got my numbers (yay!) from Moon City Press for Field Guide to the End of the World.  The numbers were good enough that I’m getting a royalty check (double yay!) and I think, well, for a time period in which I got diagnosed with terminal cancer the month the book came out, then had my first serious MS flare, then the testing and recovery for three months after the diagnosis, well, I don’t think I did too badly. I’m going to try to get out and about a little more this summer – I’ve got a reading planned for Olympia, the Redmond Poets in the Park festival, and a couple of other things. I’m also think about doing a giveaway for an hour Skype consult on the subject of PR for Poets – what do you think? Is that something that would be helpful?

Well, this week has been doctors, dentists, more dentists, and more doctors…so I haven’t gotten as much accomplished poetry-wise as I was hoping. What about you? What are you looking forward to as the summer solstice approaches?

 

 

 

 

Speculative Poetry Interview and A Guest Blog Post on PR for Poets – Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone and Getting Through the Hard Parts

Goldfinches and Sunflowers

Good morning from a slightly gray northwest June day. This pair of goldfinches I caught two nights ago at almost dusk. Then yesterday morning one landed on my deck and tried to eat from the hummingbird feeder! I think sunflowers attract goldfinches. Can anyone tell me if that’s true? Anyway, I bought a sunflower for my back deck and since then, I’ve seen goldfinches way more often.

Interview about The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Science Fiction Feminism, and Speculative Poets I Love

Thanks to T.D. Walker for interviewing me on her blog for her “speculative poets in conversation” series. I talk about my love of Tennessee, the impacts of nuclear pollution, why I wrote The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, the dangers of scientific forefathers, and more!

Guest Blog Post on PR for Poets and The Importance of Getting Out of Our Comfort Zones

Also thank you to Anna of The Diary of an Eccentric Bookworm for hosting me as a guest blogger for this post on PR for Poets and an anecdote about the importance of getting out of our comfort zones. Read it if you want to hear about one of my first and most uncomfortable reading experiences!

Getting Through the Hard Parts

The last few days have been a little rough. My husband’s been sick with a summer cold, that I caught and laid me low for a couple of days. I got disappointing news from the blood tests for my liver, a few things were “out” – which could mean cancer, or could mean a reaction to medications, or nothing – and I have to get them redone in two weeks. If you follow this blog, you know I’ve lived with the uncertainty of cancer – diagnosed first as terminal and metastatic, now a big question mark – for the last two years. And then I was diagnosed with MS. Not a banner time for me, personally, emotionally, or professionally. You may have noticed I start most blog posts with positive things – birds, flowers, favorite places. This is intentional – a reminder to myself that there is still beauty in the world, despite the news, despite what I’ve been going through personally.

So when I read the news about Kate Spade’s death by suicide it felt personal. Here was one of my heroines – successful businesses woman who supported charities I cared about, creator of interesting and artistic accessories still appropriate for working women (probably the first purchase I made as a working woman to prove to myself I had “made” it was a Kate Spade bag.) It’s horrible thinking about her 13-year-old daughter going through the trauma. It’s a loss.

But here’s the thing – hidden illnesses are just that – hidden. I’ve never seen a picture of Kate Spade where she wasn’t perfectly put-together and smiling. She had plenty of money, plenty of success. But that had nothing to do with it.

I twittered about my sadness over her death, including a string of her accomplishments. A Trump supporter (literally that’s all I could tell about this person from their Twitter bio) wrote to me asking me about her charity involvement. I was wary – usually Trump supporters only write to me to say racist, sexist, hate-filled things – but it turned out through our twitter conversation that this twitter person was struggling to understand the suicide of a seemingly good, happy person, much like the rest of us.

It’s a reminder that many of us have struggled without showing obvious signs. It’s a reminder that we are all trying to get through the hard parts.

I write about the good things in my life but I have also tried to share some of the bad parts, too, because I don’t want to try to pretend. No one’s life is perfect. Every writer or creative person struggles first to create, then get their creations into the world, then the responses to their creations – then the cycle starts again. Chronic illness takes a toll. I carefully construct an image – you don’t often see pictures of me in the hospital, getting blood drawn or getting yet another MRI, or the days when I feel too bad to get out of bed. But that doesn’t mean bad days don’t happen – of course they do. Just a reminder that we should have compassion for each other, for ourselves, because no matter what a life looks like on the outside, each of us has days when it can all seem like too much.

Top 5 Tips for Promoting Your Poetry Book, Poems in Faerie Magazine and Cincinnati Review, and Summertime Poetry

Top Tips for Promoting Your Poetry Book

First, thanks to Serena Augusto-Cox for hosting my blog post at Savvy Verse &Wit – my post is “Top Five Tips for Promoting Your Poetry Book” from my book PR for Poets!

Poems in Faerie Magazine’s Mermaid Issue and Cincinnati Review’s Summer Edition

Yesterday brought an abundance of poetry – the new Summer 2018 issue of Cincinnati Review, which contains, among other things, one of my new poems, “Self-Portrait as Late August Evening” – and the new Mermaid issue of Faerie Magazine is out, with three illustrated poems by me, including “The Little Mermaid Warns You.” They do a beautiful job with their magazine!

Summertime Poetry Season

Lavender and Roses in Kirkland

Summertime is almost here, and along with it, eating salads for breakfast, some excellent bird-watching and gardening experiments, and a weird season for poetry because we seem to have more time to write – those late still sunny nights…but fewer lit mags are open to submissions. It’s a great time to schedule some catch-up time with friends and work on neglected poetry manuscripts.

I was sitting out on my back deck watching herons swoop by, the towhee swishing around my trees, and saw this beautiful and rarely seen Western Tanager. It swooped into a sunbeam long enough for me to get these pictures.

So, as I’m going around talking about PR for Poets, I’ve been investigating the latest news in promoting books. I’ve even been trying out Instagram (check out my attempts @webbish6) and reading up on the newest ways publishers are trying to promote books, like the power of Goodreads (read a case study of Little Fires Everywhere here.) Now there’s talk of the coming demise of Barnes & Nobles and how that will affect the book world. Yet the world needs poetry more than ever, and I notice that I read more books in the summer myself. So what are your summer strategies for staying motivated and inspired?

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jeannine Hall Gailey is a writer with MS who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and is the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize, Field Guide to the End of the World, and the upcoming Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. 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 Ploughshares.

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