A New Poem in the Atlanta Review, Trying to Say Something about America Right Now, and a Grey End of May

Hummingbird and fuchsia flower

A New Grim Poem in The Atlanta Review

First, before we talk about grimmer subject matter, many thanks to The Atlanta Review for taking my poem, “Grimoire,” for their beautiful spring 2020 issue (which I share with my friend Ronda Broatch.)

Here’s a picture of Sylvia with the new issue, and a sneak peek at my poem “Grimoire.” (Click on the poem to enlarge for easier reading.)

 

Towhee protected by spiking branches

Trying to Say Something About America Right Now

Poetry is good, but sometimes it’s not enough. Now, besides the pandemic that has killed 100,000 people with no signs of stopping, we have a growing unrest resulting from the police murder of several African Americans. America, now is the time to do better. To demand better from those in charge and those who wear a uniform.

I grieve for an America that allows men in certain uniforms to murder other unarmed, helpless men and women because of the color of their skin. We need to demand reform and we need to vote out those who are gleeful in their hate (yes, this President, but others, too, and anyone who makes excuses for murder.) We need to ask questions about why white men who spit on service workers and threaten them with guns for wearing masks are called “protesters” while African Americans who speak out about the murder of their people are called “thugs.” We need to ask if the police are actually “Protecting and serving” anyone but themselves, and if not, why has that been allowed and how will we fix it?

Why is it still acceptable to publicly espouse hate?

Orange roses, late May, Woodinville

A Grey End to May

Today has been a grey, rainy day. Seattle is not only under coronavirus-related lockdown but roads have been shut down and a 5 PM curfew has been announced. Trains and ferries have been stopped. The news is full of ugly images.

This morning I attended a two hour online master class from A Public Space on editing creative-non-fiction and fiction. As you probably know if you’re here, I’m mainly a poet, but I occasionally experiment with other forms, and I’d never rule out a short story or a memoir someday, so it’s good to learn about the tools. Check out A Public Space which is also offering free online book clubs.

I then fell asleep for two hours. Zoom still wears me out. I’m not sure if this is an MS thing or what. Does this happen to you guys, or is because of my damaged neurology? Or could it be the massive unrest across the country, the accumulated anxiety of months of lockdown coming to an uneasy end, that makes it hard to have energy for appreciating the good things, like this towhee and orange roses?

I will leave you with an image from an earlier, sunnier day in my neighborhood, with the pale outline of Mount Rainier in the background. Wishing you health and safety, wishing our country justice.

A New Poem in Baltimore Review, Field Guide on a Grim Times Reading List, More Pink Typewriters and Birds, and Weathering May Gloom

Pink Typewriter Paris Vignette

A New Poem in The Baltimore Review and Still in Lockdown in Washington State

It’s the end of the third week of May, and while many states are opening up, my area in Washington State is still mostly in lockdown. This really doesn’t change anything for the likes of me, someone who’s high-risk and immune-compromised, honestly, but I can feel others getting impatient. We still don’t have enough: tests, PPEs, viable treatments. If you feel stressed, remember we’re living through something unfamiliar, unprecedented in either ours or our parents’ time. It’s like the Great Depression plus tuberculosis, with a number of dead in such a short time it rivals a fairly big war. People say, “When are we going back to normal?” and I think to myself, the answer is maybe never. Maybe we won’t go back to crowded concerts or lots of packed-in-sardine-can planes, maybe the sky and water will be cleaner, maybe we won’t shake hands anymore or ever dole out casual hugs to people we don’t know well. Maybe more companies will let their employees work from home and voters will decide universal health is maybe kind of important. Maybe hospitals and retirement homes will be redesigned with more privacy, better ventilation, more sunlight. And we went from “normal” to isolated and scared, dealing with scarcity in all kinds of things (thermometers? vitamin C?) in a matter of days and weeks. We lost 100,000 people,  just in America, in about three months. Of course you don’t feel normal, of course you feel scared and stressed. It would be remarkable if you did not. Don’t worry. I’ve got bird and flower pictures, as well as recommended reading for grim times, farther down the post.

In good news, The Baltimore Review published a new poem of mine, “Planting Camellias as Act of Resistance,” in their latest issue. It’s a wonderful lit mag to check out. And here’s a sneak peek at my poem:

From The Baltimore Review

Three Ways of Looking at a Red-Winged Blackbird

I’ve always liked red-winged blackbirds, and lately they have decided to visit my back deck. Here are three shots, two of which show exactly how much beautiful color they have.

Writer with pink typewriter and pink peonies

Reading for Grim Times

I was honored to have my book Field Guide to the End of the World included in this reading list for grim times, which includes Margaret Atwood, Emily St John, and Traci Brimhall. I’d recommend the entire list. Station Eleven, in particular, shows a clear path for how art can exist after a terrible plague. Of course, her plague is a bit more supernatural than ours but otherwise, it’s a great fable about artists in apocalypse.

And here’s a picture of me with my new vintage pink typewriter. Look how soothing that pink light is – and that’s not a filter, there was an incredible peach afternoon light. It’s been mostly raining this week, but this was a moment of sun.

 

 

Rufous Hummingbird

Wishing you health and safety for your week ahead. I hope you spend Memorial Day in the sunshine with your loved ones, and I hope those of you that work in health care stay safe.

 

 

 

 

How To Promote Your Book During a Pandemic – PR for Poets Tips on Trish Hopkinson’s Blog

Typewriter, Sylvia, magazine, tiara: a still life

How To Promote Your Book During a Pandemic

I don’t usually post two blog posts so close together, but I wrote something for Trish Hopkinson’s blog that I thought might be useful for some of you and it went up this morning. I had several friends who had books come out recently – one who had a novel and a poetry book come out in the last couple of months – and I started to think about how to encourage them to try to promote their books during a undoubtedly tough time for book sales – we can’t even walk into a bookstore right now.

So I sat down and wrote four pages about how to promote your book during a pandemic. I hope you find it useful! And thanks to Trish for hosting me on her fantastic writer’s blog!

PR for Poets, the Book

Here’s the link: How to Promote a Book During a Pandemic on Trish Hopkinson’s Writing Blog

A little excerpt:

“During a pandemic, we’re actually more in need of good, stimulating reading material, not less. People turn to art to help deal with the stress and chaos they’ve been experiencing. But they can’t go browse in a local bookstore and they probably have a hard time filtering promotional posts on social media. So how to get the word out about your fantastic piece of hard work and help your press sell your book so they can stay in business?”

And if you feel like reading more about book promotion, check out my book from Two Sylvias Press, PR for Poets.

And good luck to all of you with books coming out right now. I’m sorry it’s such a hard time, but I hope you get to celebrate your accomplishments at least a little at home, and I’m wishing you the best!

Pink Typewriters, a Charm of Goldfinches, and Why Ina Garten is Helpful in a Pandemic

Sylvia looking into middle distance with pink typewriter

Pink Typewriters, Reading and Other Consolations During a Pandemic

For my birthday, my husband got me a vintage pink Royal typewriter, a working version I can actually type on. I love it and have already really found relief from pandemic stress in arranging photographs of it, as well as typing on it (as, the satisfying bounce of keys – so long forgotten.) Plus I pretty much love anything pink.

I thought of the things that bring us comfort during this pandemic. I talked last week about the pleasures of birdwatching, that being still and having time have made so much more important, somehow. Writing is a consolation, and reading books (in short bursts – anxiety has broken my attention span to about fifteen minutes) and magazines is a definite pleasure, and though I’ve been watching less television, I really enjoyed the Belgravia series, and the Netflix movie The Half of It, a truly intelligent and moving romantic teen comedy written by Alice Wu, who I’m already a fan of. Are these things important? Worthy? Productive? Enough?  Arguably, they are frivolous. On the other hand, to stay sane in the middle on intense stress and uncertainty, perhaps we must embrace some things that are frivolous.

A charm of goldfinches

A Charm of Goldfinches, and Luck in Quarantine

Doesn’t a charm of goldfinches seem magical, like a sign of luck or good fortune? I took this picture one rainy morning this week, I think I’d just had a virtual doctor appointment and gotten a poetry rejection, neither very auspicious. I had a dream last night about Prince, who in my dream, was about to give a concert on my birthday, and came over and introduced himself and told me my work meant a lot to him. I don’t know what that means, but it also seems auspicious.

I keep hoping to wake up and read good news on the news feed instead of more and more terrible news, more death counts, more tragedy. I read the covid research papers every day, hoping one of them will uncover something that will change how we deal with this virus.

Early orange striped rose

Do you believe in luck? Is it bad luck that I’m in a generation that remembers 9/11 clearly, who was in high school when AIDS came onto the scene, and who is now in middle age facing a once-in-a-hundred years sort of pandemic? I had friends in NYC and in DC when the planes hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, but they were, for the most part, safe. My brother, father, and nephew all served in the armed forces, but never had to fight in a war. I’ve been sick enough to die several times, but I didn’t, sometimes out of sheer stubborness, I think. We do not choose our life path as much as we like to think, but we can control some small and large things – decisions on who to spend time with, who to love, to be kind to a stranger, to take a job that pays the bills and makes us somewhat happy. We can decide, for the most part, where we want to live – although most people never venture that far from where they were born. We don’t get to decide who were are born to or how much money we are born with, or what opportunities we get, always. We don’t get to make choices about our physical body – if we are born healthy, or born with deformities and mutations. We don’t get to decide tragedies, or when and how they happen. Control is mostly an illusion. Which is why I like to believe in luck, and good dreams, and charms. And I like to turn my attention to things that are beautiful and things that I can control – like, I can decide to buy some groceries from a local business, or flowers, or give to a local charity, or call a friend who’s stressed. I can decide how to spend my time in quarantine, worried, angry and anxious (my dark side) or focusing on flowers, birds, and books.

Jar of pink peonies

Ina Garten is Helpful in a Pandemic – a Few Thoughts

Ina Garten is a figure I’ve loved since I first started watching her after a random mention of her in a 30 Rock episode made me wonder about her appeal. She has a motherly, intelligent energy, and lives this wonderful, abundant life – she is fabulously wealthy, and makes food for her fabulous friends and her long-time husband who used to be a Dean at Yale, where I was born.

This Atlantic article talks about the bizarre usefulness of Ina’s Instagram in these times of pandemic – people flock there for advice on stocking their freezers, and their pantries, and she responds by showing pictures of her freezer and pantry, and what she is cooking (how to use lentils? Instagram comments ask?), and the cocktails she makes just for herself, whatever time of day.

I’ve always thought Ina would be very helpful during an apocalypse – and I wrote a poem about it you can find in my book, Field Guide to the End of the World. Here it is: “Post-Apocalypse Postcard with Food Network Hostess.” And I’ve got a YouTube video of me reading the poem, in case that would be fun. I hope you find peace and comfort this stressful week. Stay well.

 

Flower Supermoons, the Art and Science of Birdwatching, and Mother’s Day with Social Distancing

Buried Typewriter with red azalea, secret Woodinville location

Have you Forgotten what Day it is? What Month? It’s Time for Flower Supermoons…

Time has no meaning, I read, in quarantine, but it is May, nonetheless, and tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Picture to the left represents my new quarantine-imagined job: giving up the writer’s life to take pictures of vintage typewriters in odd locations.

I like to observe the seasons, the cycles. They do not change, although they may be altered; snow in upstate New York, 85 here in Woodinville today.

A quick addendum to the post: a big thank-you to Seattle Review of Books for publishing my coronavirus poem, “This is the Darkest Timeline.”

Flower Supermoon in May

This week we had the last supermoon of 2020, the Flower Supermoon. Aptly named, as everything seems to be in bloom at once: azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, wisteria. I tend my garden, despite deer coming through and eating my apple blossoms and lily buds, I watch the strawberries start to flower and enjoy the lilac on the breeze.

I try to document the change of seasons, the flowers, the birds. With quarantine I’ve become a better documentarian of local birds; I notice species I could swear I’ve never seen before. I glimpse an osprey overhead with a fish, a red house finch lands briefly on my balcony while I water flowers. I see my first ever black-headed grosbeak. Paying attention to something, taking your time, staying quiet, that’s birdwatching, and gardening, paying attention to something outside yourself. It is surprisingly rewarding. This seems like a metaphor, doesn’t it? If we just stay quiet, and still, we can much better observe the world around us, in all its surprise and beauty. Woodpecker and hummingbird were there the whole time; we just don’t usually notice them.

Mom with Poetry and Ploughshares

Mother’s Day, with Social Distancing

It’s an odd celebration of Mother’s Day, with no brunches, no in-person visits. My father and I are both people considered especially “vulnerable” to covid-19, so we can’t go out carefree even to the park, without masks or worry, or the drug store for a card. I’m happy both my parents are doing as well as they are in Ohio, and we can share little celebrations and worries over the phone and through the mail. Here’s my mom with their copies of April’s issue of Poetry and the Spring issue of Ploughshares, which have my poems in them. Objectively, I think, she is pretty cute. Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

Wherever you are in the world, whether you are a mother or not, times are tough, and you deserve some flowers. Here are the flowers in my neighborhood this week.

I hope May treats you kindly. We will wake up soon, like the princess in an enchanted forest where everyone has been under a spell. We will try not to take everything for granted after this apocalypse: birds, flowers, loved ones, bookstores, drinking coffee with friends, laughing. We will probably fail.

It’s May and Lockdown Continues, Reading Stack During a Pandemic, Celebrating a Melancholy Birthday

Path of fallen cherry blossoms, on my birthday

Celebrating a Melancholy Birthday During Quarantine

So, on a quiet, blowy spring day on the last day of April, I turned 47 during a pandemic. I was going to throw a “Roaring 20s Writer Party” for my birthday, and I even had a flapper dress all ready, but then, you know, coronavirus. So instead we spent a more melancholy birthday close to home. Check out this bower of fallen cherry blossoms petals on the road of a closed winery. Melancholy in one photo, right?

Orange azaleas

Glenn did try to make my birthday as normal as possible – he baked a gluten-free black forest cake, we went and looked at goslings, climbed a hill to smell wisteria in bloom and took this shot of orange azaleas. To celebrate, he got me two sets of flowers, a box of produce, and steaks from Pike Place Market (here’s where you can get a Pike Place box – you’ll be supporting local vendors, and $5 goes to the Pike Place Market Safety Net Fund.) And I did wear my party dress briefly, anyway. I read poetry and relaxed with a great dinner and had lots of phone calls from family and friends. Not a terrible apocalypse birthday, after all.

Sylvia posing with my Open Books birthday package

Reading Poetry During the Pandemic

Have you been wondering what to read during the pandemic?

I just got the birthday package I ordered from Seattle’s Open Books (again, trying to keep our local businesses alive) with Victoria Chang’s Obit and Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem.

And, if you want to know what I’ve been reading, the Poetry Foundation web site asked contributors to April’s Poetry Month issue what we were reading.
Here’s the link to read the whole thing, and a clip of my list.

Poetry Foundation Reading List

Wisteria at a closed winery

May and Lockdown Continues

So, our governor has extended Washington State’s lockdown til May 31. Some things are opening: state parks and elective surgery, some construction. I have a lot of health problems and know I’m at high risk so I’m glad they’re being safe rather than sorry. Some states that opened too soon (Georgia, North Carolina) are already experiencing increased cases. I feel terrible for small business owners, for people who can’t run their businesses during the shutdown. Restaurants in particular will be hard hit. Glenn was working from home since February, and probably will until this fall; even Amazon has announced its tech employees can work from home til October. One in five people in Seattle have filed for unemployment. Meanwhile, things break: cell phones, stand mixers, my laptop. We learn to try to cut our own hair.

Hummingbird with its tongue out

I will admit I miss some things – book stores, coffee shops, seeing my little brother on the weekend or taking a trip to one of the beautiful areas around Washington State. Walking around without being terrified of other people; remember that? This month I usually visit Skagit Valley’s tulip festival, hike around the waterfall at Ollalie State Park, or take a trip to Port Townsend or Bainbridge Island. This month, of course, we’re staying close to home. This is one of the only months that we can get outside (too much rain the rest of the year, wildfires during midsummer) so I understand that people are restless.

Purple lilacs

So, we continue to get by with grocery deliveries and walks around our neighborhood (to avoid people, I mostly walk around abandoned office parks and closed wineries, tbh) and spring continues to bloom. This week, lilacs, azaleas, wisteria. Our lilies were eaten by rabbits (or deer maybe?) but we continue to plant things in the garden.

Tomorrow, which will be good, I’m having a Zoom poetry submission party. I haven’t been submitting as much as I’ve been writing, and I have no idea if anything I’m writing is any good. I’m still looking for a publisher for two of my book manuscripts.

All my ambitious goals haven’t really happened: trying watercolor painting again, learning Japanese for real, but I have been keeping up with reading, learning new skills (like Zoom and haircutting (men’s clippers are hard!) and getting used to physical therapy exercises done by myself with advice by iphone from my physical therapist and virtual doctor appointments (which, frankly, are better than the real thing, no waiting rooms and far fewer needles.) We did a Zoom birthday get-together for my older brother’s birthday, and I’m surprised by how much those wear me out, although it’s a good way to see siblings in multiple states (Tennessee, Ohio, WA.)

For my birthday wishes: I’m hoping our country can get more antibody tests out and a couple of good working treatment options so coronavirus can become less deadly. I’m hoping not to catch covid-19 myself and I do not want to die. I know things will not go back to “normal” for a while, maybe years, maybe masks will become “normal” and cruises will disappear, working and studying from home with become “normal,” and virtual book tours will replace “in-person” author appearances. Maybe our environment will heal a little bit during our downtime. Maybe people will start to realize how important it is to take care of other people, that we are willing to pay a little bit more in order to ensure people have food, health care, and education, that we are willing to clean a little more and wash our hands more to keep others safe. Maybe I’m being optimistic. I picture a world with more birdsong, less traffic, more kindness and appreciation for the people who make our lives possible, like farmers and health care workers and delivery people, a world that embraces science and technology to make life better for everyone. Okay, before this post gets too sentimental, let me wish you a happy, safe, and well May, wherever you are, that you can see some birds and smell some flowers, read some poetry, and be kind to each other. Apocalypses are much better with poetry, flowers, and kindness.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall GaileyJeannine 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.

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