Sometime Even Ferries Get the Blues…
- At July 22, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
0
So sorry for the terrible losses for those affected by the Colorado shootings. The most moving story about that news for me was the young man, Matt McQuinn, who dove into bullets to protect his girlfriend and her brother, who both survived. For every example of evil, there is an example of an even higher level of heroism. I hope that young man’s name remains more famous than the shooter’s.
Home from Port Townsend after what I think is my worst ferry/places to stay experience ever – a series of logistical nightmares over the whole weekend with places to stay had Glenn and I practically living out of our car, scrambling for lodging an hour away from the conference and places to make food, while in between I tried to attend readings and teach classes and at least see a little bit of Port Townsend. We left at 9 PM last night and arrived home (after being turned away with no warning from Kingston’s last ferry, and getting home on a super-late-running midnight ferry from Bainbridge) last night at 2 AM. I never want to even see a ferry again. I can’t believe I ever lived on an island for a year. Don’t romanticize traveling by boat.
I lived in Port Townsend for a year once, and it felt strange going back this time – so much has changed. The streets look different, the galleries I loved, the coffee shops. I thought the classes went well – everyone seemed really engaged – and it was great to see old and new poet friends. I really loved seeing a coyote versus stag face-off, an otter climbing into someone’s canoe, the seals who always bob their heads up when I sing on the beach (for real – don’t know why, but this has been true for me for years – if you sing to the seals at dusk on the beach in Port Townsend, they will pop up their heads. I think they particularly like Scottish ballads.)
Here are a couple of pics from the conference – the wonderful Kim Addonizio, who was the workshop leader for my very first visit to the Port Townsend Writers Conference many years ago, one of my favorite poets, Dana Levin, conference artistic director and VIDA girl Erin Belieu, Kate Lebo, and me on a cliff by the beach at Fort Warden during a brief stint of sunshine.
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.
