An online interview with Joanne Merriam, Tomorrow’s Reading, and Advice from the Pages of Grimm’s
- At April 27, 2013
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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Hope you are all planning to come out to Open Books tomorrow to me and Kelly Davio read at 3 PM. It should be some fun! Kelly is a terrific reader and I promise to be extra fun.
A new interview with me by Joanne Merriam is up at her web site here:
http://www.joannemerriam.com/2013/04/26/intermittent-visitors-jeannine-hall-gailey/
She asks about some of the inspirations for Unexplained Fevers, and I included this tidbit about how some of the poems came about:
“It’s not hard to imagine Sleeping Beauty as a drug addict, or Snow White as someone with chronic fatigue syndrome, when you’re spending a lot of time in hospitals.”
Here’s a poem from Unexplained Fevers called “Advice From the Pages of Grimms’:”
Advice Left Between the Pages of Grimms’ Fairy Tales
Life is not a fairy tale, and this isn’t your pumpkin coach.
You’re not lost in some magic wood,
and that blood on your hands isn’t from an innocent stag
at all. Princess, remember to fill your pockets
with more than bread crumbs, and
if you can’t sleep don’t blame the legumes
beneath the sheets. One look at that glass coffin
they’ve set up for you should tell you
everything you need to know about their intentions.
Remember a lot of girls end up dismembered, and
every briar rose has its thorn.
Forget the sword and magic stone,
forget enchantments and focus on the profit margin,
the hard line. Read the subtext.
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.
