Well, since I can’t tell you my good news yet (I’ll give you a hint – it has to do with a “g” word rather than a “b” word) I’ll give you a funny anecdote instead…
Yesterday, I went to my doctor and then to get my hair cut (sounds like a weird combination, but they are right next door to each other, and since I had to get some more tests done for my weird fever situation, I thought I might get my hair done as well.) The first thing I thought, after talking with a new doc at the office and then to a new hairdresser, is that if doctors listened as well as hairdressers, we would all be in better health. (No offense, Peter or C. Dale. I’m sure you are both great listeners 😉
My new hairstylist had recently visited Chile with friends, one of whom offered to take her on a tour of Pablo Neruda’s homes. We talked about how important poetry was to the culture there. Then she said, “ARE there any American poets?” And I said, “Yes, but they’re all in hiding at universities.”
This conversation led me to think that maybe all those studies showing people just aren’t aware of contemporary poetry are right on. Perhaps poets should join an American Idol tour or something. Or we should create a show called “So You Think You Can Write…” My dream judging panel would be Louise Gluck or Margaret Atwood (for the strict one) Denise Duhamel (the bubbly one) and maybe Bob Hicok (the one who has the feel-good factor but says things that make very little sense.)
Would you watch that show?
Leaving tomorrow for Portland again, be back Monday…
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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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Anonymous
Congrats on your big “g” word, Jeannine! Well deserved.
Tom C. Hunley
http://www.steeltoebooks.com
P.S. I would have told the hairdresser that some poets aren’t hiding out in universities; we’re buried there, under piles of student work, committee assignments, etc. etc.
Nurse Fusion
Myself and some other Pacific U MFA students were discussing how to create a reality-tv show about surviving the low-residency, with competitions (public reading, page counts, speed reading, or bargaining for faculty members) and documentation of the fatigue and breakdowns. There would be sex, intrigue, tears, quitters, and every few days the elimination where all the students stand in front of a faculty panel that looks over their creative work and judges heavily. When someone gets eliminated their creative work is tossed in a fire.
Ivy
Grant? Guggenheim? Oh, the anticipation!
Yay!
Anne
I would TOTALLY watch that show. I’d even Tivo it every week. 😀
Hooray for happy g-word news! Now let’s see… is it a gourami? a garden? a galloping gourmet? Hmmmmm….
Peter
You tease.
When can you tell us your news!
xop
PS: Sometimes I feel exactly like a hairdresser, or a palm reader, at work.
aka Leonardo Likes Gulls
I’d watch–the show that is.
Congrats on your G!
missed your call, talk w/ya soon!
love
kels
Faulty Mindbomb
This is great. I’m totally linking to this at my Poetic Asides blog on WritersDigest.com. 🙂
Best,
Robert
Responsible Artist
Congtats on the gspot. Hope it’s a grant for much money. Why is no one guessing at the b word?
David V
A g where otherwise might be a b? Hmmm….
My thoughts range from financial to chromosomal.
Congrats regardless!
Jilly
gruntle?
grammar?
grackle?
grain?
groin?