The haibun on Ploughshares (and a poem from my second book!)
I’m in love with a Japanese poetry form called the haibun. I teach it in my poetry class at National, I’ve taught it at poetry conferences, and if you’re around long enough, I’ll probably try to get you to write one.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil has a wonderful post covering the basics of haibun on the Plougshares blog and kindly used one of the poems, “The Fox-Wife Describes Her Courtship,” from my upcoming second book from Kitsune Books, She Returns to the Floating World, as an example. Thanks for the shout out, Aimee! I appreciate it and I’m glad to have more props for this very cool (and surprisingly contemporary-feeling despite its ancient origins) poetic form. When can we make an awesome haibun anthology?
Confession: I’ve never been much for a rhyme scheme but somehow syllable counts don’t bother me. Another confession: if you read through my second book and pay close attention, you’ll notice a lot of the poems are in syllabic forms. Am I becoming a secret semi-formalist? The answer: no, probably not.
Links, etc…Book tours, submitting practices, six questions
Ever wonder what it’s like to go on an unfunded 17-day poetry book tour to promote your new book? Me too! Keith Monstesano gives us a blow-by-blow here.
Do you submit your poetry like a girl? Well, stop it. See Kelli’s post here.
Want to ask Kitsune Books’ editor Anne Petty six questions?
I’ve got another tendon injury. This one I can walk with, though I can’t do stairs or curbs, so it’s not as bad as the previous one. Still, I am wondering which tendon spirits I have been angering lately?
I also got my first blurb in. It was beautiful. I feel so grateful to everyone who has ever taken a look at my second book manuscript, to Rene Lynch for permission to use the beautiful cover art, to people willing to say nice things about me and my writing on the back cover of the book, and of course, to the editors at Kitsune. A lot of gratitude.
Kitsune Books special, Fiction Reviews
Go check out the special going on at Kitsune Books (the future publisher of my second book, She Returns to the Floating World) – it’s buy one get one free for the month of August! There’s poetry, essays, fiction…good fun! I’ve already got a couple of books on the way.
I’ve been in a lots-of-reading-but-no-writing kick after finishing a final re-write of “She Returns…” and another revision of my newest MS. Most of the reading has been fiction, and two books I enjoyed particularly were Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey, a book about a young magazine writer who returns to her stuffy-academic home town after her father, an eminent poetry critic, passes away and leaves her the literary executor to a book of poetry. This may be criticized as thinly-veiled autobiography, since the author is the daughter of (still living, as far as I know – see comments) Amherst President and novelist Peter Pouncey. The character is amazingly unlikable right up until the end of the book. I don’t dislike books just because their main characters are unlikable, at least not all the time, and I enjoyed what this book had to say about poetry, about small towns, about the academic world (I’m a professor’s daughter myself, so…) and about the complicated relationships between daughters and fathers. In a satifying conclusion, she both lets go of her father and embraces his influence on her life after a tremendous betrayal by someone close to her. I’d say the last fifth of the book was worth the somewhat slow beginning. The other book was How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson, which was 1. misclassified as YA fiction, and 2. had such a mean-spirited Publisher’s Weekly Review that I instantly felt the need to defend it. It’s really a fun book about class and reading, about the relationship between author and audience. Here’s my review from Goodreads:
“A mashup of plots from soaps like “The OC” and “Gossip Girl,” a dash of “Prep,” some satire of writers/postmodern lit and a bit of characterization from F. Scott Fitzgerald, this book was fun to read on a sentence level and the occasional witticisms were worth waiting for. Much better than the Publisher’s Weekly review would have you believe; maybe they were in a bad mood when they read it, because I found it highly entertaining and the baroque swirls of “metaplot” non-irritating.”
This is another book with an unlikable young main character, who turns into a character I really cared about and cheered for by the end. I would have liked more about the struggling female novelist in the book, actually, and less about the spoiled teen characters (I was a “scholarship” kid at a midwestern prep school for most of my youth, so there’s no shock value in describing that world for me) but that’s probably because I’m craving more books about female writers. There are suprisingly few of them (if you don’t count LM Montgomery books.) If you have any you recommend, let me know in the comments. I’m in a literary fiction mood and want more to read!
Interview from the book tour, Napa Valley Writers Conference, and More News!
Check out Mary Agner’s Thursday feature with me in the Back to the Future Book Blog Tour here. I talk about my new book, there will be sample poems, Mary asks wonderful interview questions…fun, right?
Went to the Napa Valley Writers Conference for a night and attended a reading at the Mondavi winery with Major Jackson and Ron Carlson. It was wonderful to see Major read his work, which I’ve admired for a long time, and the winery setting was just perfectly beautiful for a poetry reading. Got my copy of Hoops signed (and Major’s new book is just out from Norton, though they didn’t have copies there, unfortunately.) He read from all three books of his books, and I appreciated the references to classic and pop culture hiding in his work, and his reading style was very laid back and easy to listen to. The prose reader, Ron Carlson, also read some poetry, which ended up being funny stuff. I might sneak back in to see Brenda Hillman read tonight…
Martha Silano, my Seattle-and-Steel-Toe buddy, has won the Saturnalia book prize – so her third book will be out in 2011! A good year for books, I think…
Poetry Blog Book Tour – Interview with Christine Klocek-Lim
I’m part of a poetry blog book tour called “Back to the Future” that started yesterday with an interview of Wendy Babiak at Joanne Merriam’s blog.
Today I’m interviewing Christine Klocek-Lim. Christine received the 2009 Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry. She has two chapbooks: “How to Photograph the Heart” (The Lives You Touch Publications) and “The Book of Small Treasures” (Seven Kitchens Press). Her poems have appeared in Nimrod, Diode, Poets and Artists (O&S), Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory and elsewhere. She edits Autumn Sky Poetry, and her website is http://www.novembersky.com/. You can also follow her on Twitter: @chrissiemkl
See the rest of the week:
28 July: Wendy hosts Mary
29 July: Mary hosts Jeannine
30 July: Christine hosts Joanne
New Poet’s Market, Book Trailers, Slush Piles and Paris Review
Received my Poet’s Market 2011 in the mail today, opened it up…and discovered my article on chapbooks had been published in this version! (It also appeared in last year’s.) Surrrrrprise! G out and get a copy. Learn more about why you should do a chapbook. And also a bunch of info on poetry markets.
I’m thinking about book trailers lately as I’m trying to think ahead about the new book. Diane Lockward had a good post today on Book Trailers and Book Promotion. Kelli did a post a while ago on how to make a book trailer with iMovie that you all might find useful. Is it possible to make a cool poetry book trailer? I wish I was better with video software, images, music, and editing. What was I thinking, studying writing when I should have been training to be a video editor?
Two encouraging posts on the slush pile at The Rumpus:
http://therumpus.net/2010/01/for-the-love-of-god-people-the-slush-pile-isnt-dead/
http://therumpus.net/2010/01/a-necessarily-incomplete-but-hopefully-helpful-list-that-proves-the-slush-pile-has-a-pulse/
In other news, apparently The Paris Review accepted a bunch of poets, then un-accepted them. This blog does a good job of discussing the issues. I don’t believe in un-accepting things if possible. As a journalist, I’ve had projects and articles killed – and in my brief time as an Acquisitions Editor at Microsoft Press, I saw book projects killed. As a poet and poetry editor, I would say it’s less common, maybe because there are no kill fees involved?
Discouragement, Nice Rejections, and Persistence
Sometimes reading an old blog post accidentally can be really enlightening. I posted about “nice rejections and the MFA blues” a few years ago, back in 2007.
http://myblog.webbish6.com/2007/02/does-anyone-write-nicer-rejection-slips.html
What’s especially interesting is that the comments were so supportive, mostly from people I’d never met (though I would meet some along the course of life as a writer.) David Barber has since continued to write me very nice rejection slips over the years. I almost look forward to them now!
I also thought it was interesting that Kelli Agodon said she had never sent to the Atlantic, and that was February of 2007. By August of 2007, her poem “How Killer Blue Irises Spread” was published in The Atlantic. John Gallaher mentions his own post-graduate blues; this is right before his second book, The Little Book of Guesses, appeared, to pretty terrific acclaim.
I was also thinking that I didn’t remember being particularly discouraged as a writer after my MFA – but apparently I was, because there is the proof, captured in an old blog post. A cycle of discouragement appears throughout the years on this blog – sometimes I’m excited and busy, like I am right now, consumed with a new project. But sometimes I feel sending out poems and manuscripts is drudgery (not the writing part, but everything that goes with writing.) Sometimes I feel happy with my work, other times not so much, but what’s interesting is the work keeps happening, whether I’m happy with it or not. My writing and submitting habits – which you could follow if you could see my files on the computer – stay remarkably consistent, regardless of what I’m feeling, apparently. Which I think is actually a good thing. Keep sending out your poems and manuscripts. Try sending somewhere you might not believe you’ll get an acceptance from. You just never know.
Cover Art – Rene Lynch’s Secret Life of the Forest "A Different Sleep"
Theme, Tone, Mood: Two Books and gluten-free banana bread
In my first couple weeks of the manuscript class I’ve been running, we’ve talked about the theme, tone, and mood of the manuscripts we’re working on. It made me think about the process of writing “Becoming the Villainess,” which began when I was in my early twenties, and the process of writing “She Returns to the Floating World,” which I started when I was in my early thirties, and how I changed during those years. The tone and mood of the two books changed as well. The first book is funnier and angrier; the second book is a little more melancholy and surreal. Though I use some similar strategies (persona poetry, mythology and pop culture references) “She Returns to the Floating World” is more bluesy, more wistful. The fact that I started writing these poems after I’d been married for ten years meant that some of that content showed up in this book, but didn’t in the first – the strange alienation that can happen between people that know each other really well, the distances between men and women. There is less violence but more of the animal nature. Illusion, transformation, disappearance. Also, you’ll see references to such anime classics as: FLCL/Fooly Cooly, My Neighbor Totoro, Fullmetal Alchemist, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Howl’s Moving Castle and many others!
Did I mention I’ve developed an anaphylaxis reaction to wheat in the last year? I’ve got a lot of French in me, so I’ve been missing my bread and cakes. For our anniversary, we tried out a new gluten-free recipe – banana bread. After a few misses – gluten-free baking can be very touchy – I think we have a hit:
Gluten free banana bread that even people who can eat wheat will like!
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup oil (We used canola.)
2 Tablespoons water
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Tablespoons molasses (for color – the bread stays very light colored without it)
1 and 1/3 cups ripe banana, smashed
3/4 Cup potato starch
2 Tablespoon potato flour
1 Cup brown rice flour
1/2 Cup white rice flour
3 Teaspoons baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon salt
chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and put butter/put cooking spray on a loaf pan.
Beat eggs and sugar until frothy, and then add oil, water and molasses. Add the well-mashed banana and beat until smooth.
In a separate bowl, sift together the two rice flours, potato starch, potato flour, baking powder and salt.
Gently mix the dry ingredients into the banana and egg liquid until just combined (do not over mix).
Spread the batter evenly into the pan, and bake for about 60 minutes, or until middle is firm and the top has turned a golden brown. Let set for 10-15 minutes before serving.
Tastes great grilled and served with ice cream, yogurt, or cream cheese. Also good with coffee and brunch.
Anniversaries, Cover Art, and Twitter
Today I’m celebrating my 16th wedding anniversary. That just seems crazy – where did the time go? In Napa, the weather is really romantic this time of year – always warm with the smell of jasmine and green things, the hills with vines on them, white egrets flying in the sky and deer and jackrabbits on the trails.
Also, since I became allergic to wheat after 36 years Glenn has been diligently learning new gluten-free recipes left and right. I am thankful he is trained in chemistry and just like that Old Spice commercial guy – baking me a cake in a kitchen he built with his own hands! (Well, we’re renters, but I’m sure he could build a kitchen if he needed to.)
I’ve been thinking hard about cover art and what cover art can and can’t do for a book. Good cover art might make someone pick up a book, might give someone a correct impression of what’s inside, and acts as an adjunct for the writing. I really like Kelli’s cover art, which seems evocative and strange, something that invites rather than subtracts. You want art that invites the reader into the book. Something that communicates the mood without ruining the surprise. Also, how awesome is it to worry about cover art? So much more fun than worrying about rejections. Doing a little happy dance again for the book and for my new publisher. So many things to be thankful for this weekend!
Related to this: I promised a story about how twitter led to me finding a home for my second book. For a long time I resisted twitter. What can you do in 140 characters, I asked. Then, for some reason, I just signed up. I knew Margaret Atwood was up there, twittering away, and Aimee Mann, two artists I respected. I knew publishers – like Kitsune Books, Graywolf Press, among others – had twitter accounts. One of the terrific side-effects of signing up for a twitter account was learning more about a potential publisher and their likes/dislikes – the Kistune Books editors talked about music, querying, and publishing biz – all of which made me like them more and feel that they were a good fit for my work. This led me to the querying, and then the rest is history.
Another reason to sign up for twitter? A suprising number of job leads – people post links to jobs almost every day!
In honor of my publisher and the fox-wife theme of my new book, here is an adorable picture of baby bat-eared foxes for no reason!
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.
