I know AWP is the place for poets to be in April, but it turns out the universe has other plans for me: my presentation was accepted for WonderCon 2010, which is a few days earlier in April and much closer to home, in San Francisco. The presentation will be on something like this, I think: “From Buffy to the X-Men: Female Comic Book Superheroes in Women’s Poetry.”
I have to admit to being pretty excited. There are supposed to be something like 34,000 attendees. Gail Simone, one of my favorite female comic book writers, will be there, as will Peter S. Beagle, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Seattle a couple of years ago. (One of my early literary heroes, as he penned one of my favorite childhood books, The Last Unicorn.) Plus, some tv and movie stars and comic book royalty and such. Squee!
I’m beginning to feel better after a two-week mystery virus had me bedridden with chills and on a fluid-only diet, and I started at a newer, fancier physical therapy place for my tendon problems/sprained ankles that have had me in a wheelchair since Christmas Eve. It’s very shiny and has a recumbent stair-climber that I think I would like to have in my house, even after my ankle problems have cleared up.
Aside from that, I’m trying to fix up my taxes, apply for the NEA grant though I have a discouraging feeling about it, and send out poems/book manuscripts, which I also have a generally discouraged feeling about. I don’t know if the discouraged feelings have anything to do with reality, it’s just something that happens and I don’t want to send anything out, though I never ever stop writing. Discouragement keeps me from submitting but not from writing, isn’t that odd? Anyway, as a segueway, let me introduce you to this lovely post about rejection from Kelli:
http://ofkells.blogspot.com/2010/01/notes-from-beneath-covers-why.html
that will remind you that rejection is really not all about you, which is pretty comforting, actually.
Also, check her blog for a recent call for submissions for Ekphrastic poetry for Crab Creek Review.
I’ve been inspired to post this article I wrote, “The Bad Wives Club,” by several things:
—This story about a journalist who ran her own piece after it was accepted, then killed.
–The recent discussion about Zucker’s newest book, Museum of Accidents, by Stephen Burt and others on a variety of blogs, focusing on her poetry about motherhood.
I wrote this article last year about Rachel Zucker’s The Bad Wife Handbook and Beth Ann Fennelly’s Unmentionables. I really loved both books and thought that they had something important to say. The article was accepted by a well-paying org, then killed.
Here is a teaser. Click on the link at the end for the full article.
“If we were to plot out the trajectory of American women’s poetry on wife-hood, from Anne Bradstreet to Sylvia Plath to Louise Gluck to Rachel Zucker, what would that look like? Even the word “wife” seems freighted with connotations of motherhood, domestic chores and duty. What does it mean for a woman to be a wife in contemporary society? How can one be a “good” or “bad” wife? These are some of the questions posed to a contemporary reader in Rachel Zucker’s The Bad Wife Handbook and Beth Ann Fennelly’s Unmentionables.
Zucker and Fennelly question the guilt and the societal expectations in an unmerciful, sometimes piercing light. Can a contemporary woman keep her individuality, her art, her erotic self, alive in the face of the expectations of being a “good” wife, a “good” mother? What do those words even mean?
The two poets use different syntactical strategies while addressing similar subjects – Fennelly’s poems simmer and stir, bursting out of their narrative structures to include as much of her inner turmoil and messy, robust sexuality as possible, while Zucker’s tease and bemuse with their constant shimmying of pronouns, subjects and verb tenses.”
Rest of article here.
(If you like it, help support a poet – consider ordering my book or asking your local library to carry it. Thanks!)
My French teacher, Abner Genece, was not only a great teacher but a great influence on me as a lover of literature. (We read French poetry, Victor Hugo, and Andre Gide in his class.) He spoke with great love of Haiti (and spoke with great passion about the political injustices there) and even taught us a little Creole, the language most commonly spoken in Haiti.
It has been just awful watching the images coming in from Haiti. Please give, if you can, to one of the charities helping in Haiti. My choice is usually Northwest Medical Teams (now Medical Teams International,) which has an excellent record of actually using funds for helping people, unlike some charities. Here’s a link:
https://www.medicalteams.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=320&fund=17
Husband G’s work does matching funds for disasters, so check into your workplace and see if that is a possibility.
My folks are coming in town, which would be better if I wasn’t running 101 fever and was able to eat solid food. I just had, I think, all of my blood taken out at the hospital lab yesterday (or at least it felt that way) to figure out what’s going on since I’ve been pretty sick for a week already (both arms! Multiple sticks! Not my ideal lab visit.) Think good healing thoughts for me. I fear I will not be a very good tour guide in my current state. However, husband G did stay up last night baking them biscotti for their visit. So at least they’ll have that!
In poetry news, had a poem, “She Returns to the Floating World,” in the speculative journal Goblin Fruit:
http://www.goblinfruit.net/2010/winter/poems/?poem=floatingworld
The speculative poetry world is in a parallel universe that I don’t visit enough; the editors have a lot of fun, the readers do too, and a lot of times, they actually pay for poetry. I also notice more friendly correspondance from editors and fellow poets in those journals. I had an article on this topic in the Poet’s Market 2010, but basically, if you write poems about fairy tales, science fiction, or science, you owe it to yourself to check out the world o’ speculative poetry. Some of my favorite journals for poetry in this genre are Lady Churchhill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Mythic Delirium, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Star*Line, Cabinet Des Fees, and Goblin Fruit. I’m probably leaving out a lot of good ones with that list, which is a mix of print and online journals.
If you just can’t get enough of interviews with me, check out my new interview at Public Republic:
http://www.public-republic.net/i%E2%80%99m-attempting-to-connect-poetry-and-science.php
The interviewer, Bob Baker, really liked the poem “In the Faces of Lichtenstein’s Women” so I put up a recording of it on my sample readings page here in case you are interested:
https://webbish6.com/audio.htm
Plus, my artist friend Michaela Eaves (who did the cover of Becoming the Villainess) is doing her yearly “sketch a day” up on her blog – check it out:
http://corvida.livejournal.com/
How is your new year going so far? I was feeling a bit discouraged yesterday, but was helped by getting out into the watery sunshine in nearby lovely Yountville, where I can’t afford to eat at the many fabulous starred restaurants but I can afford a loaf of bread and lemonade from one of their bakeries.
I finally got my contributor copy of the Fall 2009 The LA Review, which was really fun to read – particularly the poetry – many of which were playful and refreshingly non-downbeat, including those by Deb Ager and Kelli Agodon.
I’ve also got a new poem up at the very intriguing online journal Prick of the Spindle called “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle.” Isn’t that a great marriage of poem title and journal title? I enjoyed reading the poetry in this issue as well.
Also got the anthology for the nominees for the Dwarf Star prize anthology, which included poems by editor Mike Allen and Seattle haiku poet Michael Dylan Welch. I was honored one of my own poems was nominated as well! Thanks Poemeleon and SFPA!
Rain is coming back to town, which I guess I can’t complain about, since most the country is in some sort of deep freeze. Ready for spring yet? When do the days start feeling longer?
Happy New Year! I mean it!
2009 was a hard year on a lot of people I know. Including me. That is why I’m happy to be waving goodbye. At the end of the year, my husband and I always listen to an old song by the Counting Crows called “A Long December” whose chorus goes something like “It’s been a long December/and there’s reason to believe/maybe this year will be better than the last.”
There’s always something hopeful about the beginning of the new year, even with all the bad news of 2009 pounding in our ears (terrorism! the economy! swine flu!) Hope is harder than fear, more delicate, more quiet.
My hopes for 2010 (as some of them are not so much resolutions but hopes) include:
–Walking without crutches, preferably sooner rather than later!
–A great (and enthusiastic) publisher for my second book.
–Put myself out there more. Apply for things I think are beyond my grasp. Be more assertive about asking for things like readings or work opportunities.
–Connect with people more. Be more social and attend more writing-related activities such as readings, parties and workshops. (Maybe even AWP? I’ve been unable to attend the last couple of years because of health problems, but I’d really like to go to Colorado…)
–Taking more nature trips – the woods, the ocean, etc. I definitely feel more myself when I’m not surrounded by apartments or buildings or lights or parking lots.
–Find some way to increase my paying work, and decrease my non-paying work. This isn’t so much a hope as a necessity, as living in California is insanely expensive.
–Try new things. Be more adventurous. Appreciate the good things around me as much as possible.
On that last one: I have always been very achievement-oriented, from a very young age. Always looking to the next goal, what I should be doing, how to maximize efficiency. One of the good things to come out of this year of health craziness was the ability to slow down and appreciate what I could do, what I could enjoy. When I had an amoeba and all I could eat was rice broth for weeks, well, I could still go out and feel sunshine on my face. When I broke my foot (and now with my ankle problems,) I realize that there is so much to enjoy from a new position – resting, reading, writing. With every setback, I felt that I was still appreciative of what I was able to do; when I was in the hospital with pneumonia this summer, I thought each morning: well, I’m still alive, and I’m going to leave the hospital and get better. And I did. I am thankful for the five poems I wrote this month, for my wonderful husband and fluffy cats, for the hummingbirds outside my window, for the fact that I can eat solid food right now and breathe without coughing even if I am experiencing other technical difficulties. I am hoping that 2010 brings more love, more joy, more hope, more health, to you and to me.
Happy after-Christmas, everyone! Hope you all got your wishes from Santa!
Well, I asked Santa for two working ankles, but he must have thought I said two matching ankles, because I sprained my other ankle on Christmas Eve. Now I have one mildly sprained ankle and one severely sprained ankle with tendonosis, which means I’ve got a degenerated tendon. I always thought part of me was degenerate. And I threw my neck out using my crutches, so, generally, feeling a little physcially discombobulated. The person I saw at urgent care (an area that doubles as the local ER – mercifully, both empty on Christmas Eve) for my sprained ankle and neck basically told me there was a lack of good doctors (especially primary care doctors – he had to solicit from his patients to find one himself, and he said it took him awhile!) and physical therapists here in Napa Valley – a conclusion I had already come to through experience. It’s weird when medical resources must be accounted for when deciding on where to live. I should be better at it by now, anyway.
I missed my Midwestern-dwelling family, but was able to connect with almost everyone on the phone, and besides, what fun would a girl with no working ankles be on the holiday? LOL. A lot of the family – or their spouses – were sick, with stomach flus and colds. I’ve actually been homesick for Seattle, although one of my good friends reminded me, “Think about all the reasons you left Seattle.” But all I can remember is how much I loved it there. Sigh. Well, and the rain – I do remember that.
It’s rainy and chilly here in Napa today, and although our Christmas dinner (thanks to husband G) was mightily delicious I just can’t think about eating the leftovers yet! We had plans for ham-and-cheese omelets and ham-and-bean soup, but for breakfast I’m eating plain rice, no ham. Maybe some carrot-ginger juice later.
I have a wonderful set of books to read, lots of pretty shiny things to look at, thanks to my family, and am generally not as freaked out as I could be. But I’m hoping for better luck and health in 2010.
On the plus side, plenty of excuses for reading and watching DVDs…
Merry Holidays Everyone! My Christmas shopping is finished, the tree is up and decorated, and tomorrow I’m buying a tiny ham (well, tiny is relative – only four pounds!) for Christmas dinner. I am wishing you all a lot of writing time under the tree. Speaking of which…
Thanks Mary for your “three poems before the end of the year” challenge. I’ve now written four! I don’t think I would have done that without the challenge.
I also checkout out a boatload of books from the library. One was Gluck’s new book, A Village Life. I loved it. I thought, while it contained her usual themes “Autumn, Loss, Death, Etc…” (that’s an inside joke for you Gluck fans) it was more romantic and loose than her books have been in some time. The outer landscape of the village mimics the inner landscape of the writer. In particular, her poems about young love seemed touching and nostalgic. Some of the poems seem intensely personal – particularly ” Walking at Night” as she talks about her body being invisible in the summer night as she ages and “At the River” in which she talks about her father drinking wine “with his friend the Holy Ghost.” (Coincidentally, I was listening to Sarah McLachlan’s cover of the “The River” at the time) Liked it a lot.
Still thinking about whether or not I enjoyed The Magicians by Lev Grossman, kind of a Holden-Caulfield-goes-to-Hogwarts-and-then-Narnia novel. I think I would have enjoyed it more without the main character – A “Bright Lights Big City” style ennui-filled narrator. Are contemporary authors not allowed to write characters who are engaged with the world anymore? I had the same problem with The Corrections.
I also got a book of essays by Michael Chabon. And reading Allison Benis White’s Self Portrait with Crayon, which I like a lot so far.
I think there is a connection between reading for fun and writing. Can I get some funding for that study?
I liked Stephen Burt as a critic before this – in fact, I’ve assigned his essays to my class before – but after this terrific essay on poetry and superheroes:
http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_burt3.php
I am even more of a fan. He talks about how poets can connect to wider mythology through superheroes, and also how they can be used as a kind of subversive accessibility:
“Poems about superheroes, famous or obscure, announce their divorce from expectations about high culture, antiquity, “academic” difficulty.”
I was pretty excited that the essay mentioned two poems of mine as well.
I admit that when I was writing Becoming the Villainess, I was writing it for a specific audience – for an audience that perhaps wasn’t that friendly with poetry, but definitely knew something about comic books, video games, and maybe even Greek mythology. I wanted it to be something a college student could pick up and understand, relate to. I wanted it to be something that might make a non-poetry-lover like poetry again.
Anyway, check out the article, and you might be tempted to pick up Rae Armantrout’s new book, Versed, as well.
The holidays are speeding towards us! So much last-minute holiday shopping, packing up, and shipping to do…But I love the lights, and the tree, and making egg-nog french toast and pumpkin bread and other weird foods we only make at this time of the year.
I owe you some little mini-book reviews, which will be coming soon.
My review of Kim Addonizio’s Lucifer at the Starlite is up at the Rattle blog. They are one of the few places that want you to personalize your reviews a little bit, so it’s a different experience writing for them; you don’t have to be so stuffy.
Finally wrote a new poem! It’s all about the trope of mad scientists and their daughters in fifties sci-fi movies. Even when I try to stay away from pop culture in my poems, as I have for this latest manuscript, which is based on growing up in Oak Ridge – it sneaks back in!
And I applied for one job and sent in two book queries. Fairly productive for a gloomy December day! We’ve had a cold front that has freaked out the Californians – high of fifty during the day, freezes at night, how crazy! – and I’ve heard a lot of people say “This isn’t what I moved to California for!” I want to point out to them that it is still twenty to thirty degrees colder everywhere else. I admit to breaking out my special-used-to-be-reserved-for-snow-shearling boots, though, at the first sign of forty-degree-weather. I used to wear shorts when it hit fifty – now I’m all shivery. The West Coast had made this former midwesterner weak, I tell you!
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.
