Happy Valentine’s Day – News and Love Poems
Happy Valentine’s Day!
First of all, you may have already read about Eduardo C. Corral’s good news – he has won the Yale Younger Poets Prize! I’ve been admiring Eduardo’s poetry since I discovered his blog in 2005, so I felt really happy about this. A great Valentine!
A nice shout-out from one of my mythology heroines, artist and writer Terri Windling, here.
I was honored to be nominated not once, but twice, for something called a Memetastic Blog Award, once by Marie Gauthier and the other time by Kristin Berkey-Abbott. (I will post more fully on this later, but wanted to thank them both for the nomination!
Two love poems from my new book, She Returns to the Floating World (due out in July from Kitsune Books!)
Love Story (with Fire Demon and Tengu)
Maybe in this version you are a bird, and I have become an old woman. Maybe you ate a falling star. It’s hard to love someone in a castle—they always feel distant. I will open a flower shop and learn to speak German, take to wearing ruffled dresses and straw hats. You’d like to pin me down, but you could tell my feet weren’t touching the ground. I called your name over and over, but you couldn’t hear me above the din of the bombers. It was like movies of wartime Japan. I looked up and there were planes bulging with smoke.
The blue sky kept getting darker –
sometimes, I thought,
with your shadow.
In the end, I have a dog in my arms and a scarecrow for a friend, but I never make it to Kansas. The field is wet and stormy, I kiss three men goodnight for their magic. The door to your childhood is opening for me. It allows me passage into a brick wall, my fists full of shiny black feathers, the shell of an egg, the howl of cold wind against a mountain. Don’t worry, your heart is in good hands. Let me keep it a little longer; its blue glow illuminates everything.
The thick knife gleams under your strong hands,
slicing carrot, onion, garlic, pepper,
scattering slivers into the air,
staining your fingers with their gold juices.
You chop so quickly the definite line
between “hand” and “knife” dissolves.
You strew pieces into the skillet,
listen for the right sting and sizzle of oil and wine,
waiting to feed me the work of your hands,
that broken finger, the tiny cuts
that lace and scar your surfaces.
Optimism Despite…
I’ve been thinking about optimism, about how it applies to life as a writer. How we must remain optimistic despite…despite rejections, despite days when you despair of ever writing what you’re really meant to write, despite the long hours and low pay, despite the evidence that the writing world is still a man’s world, etc. We keep writing. We keep sending out our work.
In my “real” life, I sometimes encounter a similar…intractability…with my health situations. I can do one of two things – I can despair, weep, shake my head, give up and lie in bed and not try to do anything, or I can embrace life, try different treatments, try to research and come up with better answers than the doctors give, and do the things that make life worth living, having fun, etc. Keep breathing, keep living every day and make every one as full as you can possibly make it.
This week I embraced optimism in both my regular life and my writing. I sent things out. I took a ton of benadryl and went ahead and went out with other writers. I put blonde streaks in my hair. I bought jeans that fit – a smaller size than I’ve been since high school, thanks to food allergy testing and those darn elimination diets – instead of walking around in old clothes that were too big. I requested a review copy of a book I’m absolutely loving. I received some tentative good news. I applied for jobs I might not get, but at least I will know I tried. I made reservations for a reading down in Southern California in two weeks, which I probably can’t afford, and tomorrow I’m having two friends – an artist and a writer that I rarely get to see – over for a visit. My house is full of pink tulips and pink lilies, because in February, we need to remember spring is almost here.
And you know what? These actions are the things I want to define me, not my rejections or my weird sporadic health problems. I choose fun, friends, pink tulips, and poetry, along with a little bit of chocolate. (See? I’m even cheating my elimination diet a little. But what is life without a little dairy-free, gluten-free chocolate? And it’s almost Valentine’s Day!)
In other literary news you might find interesting…more recaps from AWP, Claudia Rankine’s letter on race and poetry, and my friend sci-fi writer Felicity Shoulder’s Asimov’s story on Escape Pod…
Even more numbers trouble…
So, AWP is over, and the talk of the literary town is some new “numbers trouble:”
Vida shows women’s books aren’t being reviewed equitably.
The New Republic says, not only are women not being reviewed, they’re not being published equitably either, even by independent presses. (And PS – the gatekeeper (male) editors at the top lit mags aren’t publishing women equitably, either. Except, surprisingly, Poetry.)
The thing to keep in mind when looking at those percentages is thinking about the fact that more women than men buy books, so sensibly, we should be running the joint!
This kind of thing can be discouraging for a young woman writer. I know it is for me. I think about the actions I can take: buy books by women, review books by women, support magazines and publishers who publish women equitably, etc. In the classes in which I have a say, I teach a 50/50 mix of men and women, or pretty close. If I had unlimited funds, I would totally start a press. But it kind of hurts when you’re trying to psych yourself up to send out a poetry packet, or a book manuscript, or a review query, and you let yourself think: these folks publish less than 25% women. And those women are usually already famous. Dang.
What do you all think?
A quick update: Jeanne Leiby from The Southern Review looks at her numbers compared to her submission percentages – eye-opening! Clearly, this is a complex issue with more than one problematic aspect…
Even more updates: Editors take on the numbers here, here and here. And the inimitable Jim Behrle’s take.
How to Survive Not Going to AWP DC
How to Survive Not Going to AWP DC
So, for whatever reason, money, health, job, family, you find yourself not going to AWP this year. If you want to cheer yourself up, my advice is to try to simulate the experience as closely as possible. Please include your own suggestions in the comments!
–Throw some dirty snow on yourself. Maybe roll around in it. Stand outside in whatever inclement weather your neighborhood provides. Make sure you’re carrying something heavy, like a bag full of books.
–Make yourself an awesome name tag (you don’t have to use your real name) and try to sell books to passers-by on the street. They don’t even have to be your books!
–If you’re lucky enough to live in Seattle, Boulder, or Boston, go to your local poetry-only bookstore and complain about how you can’t afford to buy everything you want. Pick up several obscure literary magazines you’ve never heard of, just to mix things up. If you have no poetry-only bookstore, any independent bookstore will suffice. Flirt with the person behind the register.
–Pick a bar in your area crowded with weary conventioneers – it doesn’t matter what kind, software sales, concrete machinery, whatever – and try to start your own drunken poetry reading. Bonus points for getting others to join you!
Wishes for AWP, my recommended sidetrips from the conference, and crash courses
While life is giving me a crash course in food allergies (anaphylaxis versus intolerance, IGE tests versus IGG – these phrases were a foreign language just a few months ago!) I’m thinking about the upcoming AWP and wishing I could see all your shining faces there next week! I’ve always had fun (exhausting fun, but still fun) at the AWPs I’ve gone to, and have missed it the last couple of years. I’m going for sure next year, and of course AWP 2014, but that’s small comfort this year.
So, in service to all of you AWP-goers, and as someone who used to know DC pretty well – I worked there for six months – make sure you make a few side-trips outside of the conference:
–Check out the Smithsonian; I personally love the Natural History stuff, but them I’m a lover of dinosaurs. And the Smithsonian’s free! Tax dollars at work, people.
–Some awesome art museums, including the National Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
–Go about fifteen miles into Northern Virginia to Great Falls National Park. It’s so beautiful, you can hardly believe it’s right outside the city. I stopped there all the time when I commuted to DC from Richmond.
–Some terrific food to be had in Georgetown, if you can manage the traffic. 1789 is (higher end) traditional DC done right, Cafe Bonaparte is all about wonderful French-ified brunches (crepes!) Just stopping by some place for coffee is fun. Wander around on foot if possible.
–One night, be sure you order gigantic room service sundaes. I don’t remember how it started but this was a tradition in our family when we visited DC for Dad’s business trips. So I just naturally associate DC with hot fudge and ice cream.
Most importantly, remember to blog about your adventures, especially the juicy stuff. Because I want to live vicariously!
All over the internets!
Hey guys! Kelli Russell Agodon interviewed me today about my research recently on small presses and micropresses for an article in the 2012 Poet’s Market.
Check it out here!
I’m going to miss AWP this year, but Deb Ager from 32 Poems has some great tips for AWP-goers here!
Snow Bees, poems for the weather and some great books I’m reading…
A very seasonally-appropriate Winter 2011 issue of Goblin Fruit is out, featuring my poem “Snow Bees” – you can even hear me reading it!
Incidentally, this is one of the poems that I wrote while collaborating with artist Amy Johnson for her installment art exhibition, which involves snow, wolves, bees, the works. I’ll post info on it as soon as it’s up!
While the doctors are busy trying to figure out why I keep going into anaphylaxis (I’m going to learn to spell that word correctly, for one thing) – food allergies, autoimmune, etc – I’m trying to keep my mind occupied with new reading material. Cate Marvin’s Fragment of the Head of A Queen, Sandra Beasley’s I Am The Jukebox, and issue 8 of Cave Wall, which I’ve seen some people mention lately, and I wanted to discover a new lit mag. I’ve only glanced through all three so far, but I’ve loved what I’ve read of Sandra’s “I Am the Jukebox.” Here’s a little bit from “Another Failed Poem About the Greeks,” which will indicate why I love the book so much:
“His sword dripped blood. His helmet gleamed./ He dragged a Gordon’s head behind him…As first dates go, this was problematic.”
I’m also reading Lizzie Acker’s terrific and strange Monster Party, a hybrid-forms, short-short fiction collection from Small Desk Press, as odd and crazy and interesting as can be. I just finished the story called ‘Baby,’ in which a dying narrator talks to…well, I can’t explain what or who the baby is, but let’s just say, it’s not what you’d guess.
Reality is Overrated
Julianna Baggott has an interesting post at her blog about creative writing programs and “reality” literature. Meaning, most MFA programs strongly encourage their writers not to stretch their imaginations beyond the bounds of “what really happens.” Which I think makes for some very boring fiction. And also, poetry.
My favorite fiction writers are fabulists, magical realists, writers who cavort at the edge of the possible – Haruki Murakami, Kelly Link, and Margaret Atwood, for instance. Geek culture figures heavily in a lot of the books I read – The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao might fall into that category, or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The movies and television shows I watch aren’t reality shows, or even shows that follow realistic plotlines – they often have superheroes, or time travel, or those kinds of elements. Japanese Anime does wonderful futuristic dystopias, if you’re into that kind of thing.
So why the fetishization in fiction and poetry, in MFA programs, of “the real?” Is it from the old adage, “Write what you know?’ (I always say, write whatever you can imagine. Just imagine it with a lot of specific details.)
I often tell my students to get away from writing about their families of origin, their latest breakups, or their backyards. Yes, I know that’s what Sharon Olds and Billy Collins do. Doesn’t mean you have to do that too. There’s too little flair, wild creativity, in most poetry books today. The old great poets – William Blake, Yeats – they had imagination, and it showed up in their work. I encourage them to try new subjects, write in persona, break out of their personal “reality” cages.
Realism is a fine mode, but it’s not the only mode. It wasn’t the mode of Homer, or Ovid, or some of the finest ancient poets. “Poetry is Not Memoir.”
If you want to put superheroes in your poetry, well, that’s a reflection of some part of your “real world,” anyway. Ancient humans created myths to liven up extremely hard and dull lives. It’s up to us to continue that tradition. So yes, write about your zombies, your superheroes, your anime characters and your folk tales. Write your book in reverse narrative as both a ghost-story and a time-travel story like Karyna McGlynn did in “I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl.” What do you have to lose?
Trying Not to Get Discouraged…
Okay, well, 2011 hasn’t quite shaped up to be a banner year so far…birds falling out of the sky, mass fish deaths, and a small girl, a young female congresswoman, and a judge were just shot out of the blue at a public appearance today. Plus I’m still on crutches thanks to my sprained ankle, and unable to eat much due to my food allergies (hello, rice and potato, I’m totally sick of you now!) which the doctors are still in the process of figuring out. By the way, an extreme elimination diet is a great way to lose weight in the new year!
I did send out a submission or two, but generally I’m feeling hesitant to ask for readings for my new book, and feeling somewhat weirdly reticent about sending out poems as well. Maybe it’s general overall life discouragement seeping into my poetry life.
In Seattle we’re experiencing a bizarre cold snap, with highs this week supposedly in the twenties, and snowfall called for on multiple days. I heard Georgia was getting snow too. So add weird weather into the things that seem inauspicious for the beginning of 2011…
Adam Deutsch has been blogging about the phenomenon of big poetry publishers asking for (mostly poor poets) people to fund them. I’ve been writing an article about working with micropresses as an alternative to sending checks of $25 and more to publisher contests where we get very little input back for the money, and we’re lucky to even see a copy of the winning book. Something seems imbalanced in the poetry world. Maybe I should send out a poet fundraiser letter back to these publishers, and tell them that in these hard times, if they want me to continue working as a poet, I’ll need a donation of $25 and up…and if they pledge more than $100, I’ll be happy to send them a copy of my first book! What do you think?
2011: A New Hope
Yes, I am purposefully referencing Star Wars (the original flavor – and best chapter.) A new beginning, a new hope. Isn’t that what we all wish for this time of year? Welcome 2011! Bring us happiness, health, warmth, and all that good stuff!
This morning the sun is shining though ice is still on the ground outside, I am feeling slightly better (she says with cautious optimism!) and my very first piece of creative non-fiction has been published at In Posse Review:
http://inpossereview.com/IPR_Hall_Gailey.htm
I’ve written two new poems (both very nostalgic, what’s that about?) and today is the day I plan to put together some submissions. I planned to do it yesterday, but my computer stubbornly froze and had to be doctored up. I’m afraid my little computer may be on its last legs.
My class starts back up tomorrow, so I’d better be ready for that. I’ve got my brand new Writer’s Calender open and it is reminding me of deadlines…
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.
