Thanks to those of you who responded to my question about the relationship between the economy and your writing life. I personally feel quite oppressed in this current environment, like all the time I should be doing something that makes more money, instead of wasting my time on non-paying pursuits. I haven’t felt this anxious about money in years.
Back home last night. I loaded up on poetry and poetics book (got Kim Addonizio’s new book of essays and Human Dark with Sugar, among others) and felt bolstered-up after my week of mostly being trapped in a hotel room in gloomy weather in a wheelchair (PS wheelchair travel? Much more difficult than I thought – ick!) after a few hours (!!) in Open Books and after lunch with my friend Lana. I also picked up a black top and a pair of black shoes, because I swear they don’t sell black clothing in San Diego. See? I am doing my part to bolster the economy, despite my limited funds. The medical care coverage isn’t quite as good here as it was in Seattle, so I’m finding out (three months after visits, of course) that we owe money on more things than we didn’t for the last eight years – some doctor visits and physical therapy only covered 80 percent, as opposed to 100 – that’s part of the problem with working remotely for a Seattle-based company. That’s on top of the giant California tax beast. I am suddenly wishing the small amount of money I bring in from freelance work and teaching could be multiplied, and then I think that if I went back to technical writing management, it would be. Still, after a week in the cold, miserable Seattle weather, I can’t be sorry we moved away. I’m just sorry we didn’t move somewhere warmer AND cheaper.
So, the Switchback Books blog asks an interesting question: Are you hot enough to write? That blog post links in turn to another about how your author photo matters when you are a writer. I remember a discussion at AWP with older female editor at a big press, who mentioned how women still get discriminated against, because they’re still talked about in terms of their looks while men are talked about in terms of what they write. She called it the “Jorie Graham” syndrome. Do you buy books based on how the writers look? The weird thing is, some writers are fantastically attractive in person, but the attractiveness can’t be photographed – it’s this ephemeral thing in their movements, their attitudes, their animation, the way they talk. I always thought poetry was one place where looks didn’t matter, or at the very least, secondary to the work – but maybe I’m wrong. I think the whole brouhaha around those crazy twins would never have happened if they were terrifically unattractive, but maybe I’m wrong about that too.
This post appears to have been anxiety-generated. I will go drink some hot tea and take some deep breaths.
Well, off to Seattle (where it is not 63 and sunny, but 50 and rainy…brrr) tomorrow, and although I’m now capably limping across rooms in my cast (yay!) I’m still wheelchair-bound for the airport (boo!) Never been in an airport in a cast and a wheelchair before, so it’ll be an interesting (and no doubt, slower) experience. I’m looking forward to seeing a few friends (although not all of them – hard to schedule over husband’s G’s work stuff), visiting Open Books, eating some delicious salmon (and maybe some Rainier cherries if I’m lucky) and drinking a wonderful cup of coffee while browsing wonderful books. For some reason, southern California is devoid of the wild Alaskan salmon that was available at every grocery store in the northwest. Why all the farmed Atlantic salmon, San Diego? I’m looking forward to the visit – we were supposed to go out in February, but I couldn’t even stand on two feet back then (plus I had a cast on my hand as well) so we had to postpone. I picture myself coming home with my arms full of the things we can’t get easily here: poetry, black clothing and coffee.
Got my contributor’s copy of the really beautifully-produced pocket-size Sentence 6, which has its share of bloggers (Nin Andrews and Steve Schroeder) and writers I love, including Denise Duhamel. I’m writing a review of her newest book, Ka–Ching! as we speak. If you haven’t seen Sentence before, it’s devoted to the prose poem, and I’ve found it to be a wonderful read every time I’ve gotten ahold of a copy.
Question: Has the economic downturn affected your life as a writer? Have you submitted to fewer markets, sent out fewer manuscripts, had less time for writing?
Things have been going a little slower on the “walking” front that I had hoped. I’d hoped I’d be easily walking about by now (it’s been almost seven weeks!) but I’m still barely hobbling around, still in the cast and still mostly via wheelchair. At least my hand cast is off – but the right hand still isn’t strong enough to use a crutch. My immune system went bonkers this month and I’m really anemic (just had a bunch of new blood tests) so that may be why the healing is a little slower than normal. And to that I say, Meh!
On a happier note, I found out I was nominated for two different poems for the Rhysling Award, and the poems will appear in the Rhysling anthology for 2008. Next year, I’m going for three! For those of you who haven’t heard about it, it’s an award for science fiction and speculative poetry; previous winners include Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Jane Yolen, and Ursula Le Guin. Thanks to Poemeleon and Mythic Delirium for the nominations…in the words of academy award starlets, I’m honored just to be nominated.
We’re doing our taxes, always exciting. This year (2009) isn’t shaping up to be as financially helpful as last year, at least so far. That’s probably a common story – the downturn affects everyone, even poets! Speaking of which, buy my book (here – signed book and free broadside included! – or here,) buy a book from your favorite small press, go to a reading – keep the poetry economy (such as it is) going! I am thankful for the organizations that donate to poets, to the universities that pay poets to give readings and classes, to literary magazines that pay the small amounts they can and the publishers who pay our small royalty checks, to the individuals who buy poetry on a regular basis. The little things really do add up.
Snippet day!
Allison Joseph, an excellent poet who also happens to edit the Crab Orchard Review, was chosen from the last Steel Toe open reading series…read more here!
Annie Finch talks about women poets and mentoring here…and Barbara Jane Reyes continues the discussion here…
Amy King has a great take on the “greatness” issue here
In the mail: my contributor’s copy of The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and a little check with it! Hey, if every lit mag and journal paid us just a tiny bit, we poets would at least be able to cover our postage!
People have been discussing the influence of books of poetry, so I thought I’d bring up and discuss this poem, one of my favorites as a kid (when I had to look up the definitions of “Dirge” and “denouement”) It ended up being very influential to me. Kenneth Fearing not only wrote poetry but was also a freelance journalist (who dabbled in pulp fiction.) His use of advertising and comic book language, his anti-lyricism, and irony seeped into my work – I even named a poem after this one, “Dirge for a Video Game Heroine.” Also, he loves the serial comma.
This poem seems appropriate for our times given that is was written during the Great Depression and focuses on the disillusionment with the excesses of capitalism and the emptiness of America’s material obsessions. He was once asked whether he was a Communist in a witch-hunt trial, and he responded “Not yet.” Like another of my favorite poems, T. Roethke’s “Dolor,” this chronicles the unique sorrow of white collar work.
Dirge
1-2-3 was the number he played but today the number came 3-2-1;
Bought his Carbide at 30 and it went to 29; had the favorite
at Bowie but the track was slow –
O executive type, would you like to drive a floating-power, knee-action, silk-upholstered six? Wed a Hollywood star? Shoot the course in 58? Draw to the ace, king, jack?
O fellow with a will who won’t take no, watch out for three cigarettes on the same, single match; O democratic voter born in August under Mars, beware of liquidated rails-
Denouement to denouement, he took a personal pride in the certain, certain way he lived his own, private life,
But nevertheless, they shut off his gas; nevertheless, the bank foreclosed; nevertheless, the landlord called; nevertheless, the radio broke,
And twelve o’clock arrived just once too often,
Just the same he wore one gray tweed suit, bought one straw hat, drank one straight Scotch, walked one short step, took one long look, drew one deep breath,
Just one too many,
And wow he died as wow he lived,
Going whop to the office and blooie home to sleep and biff got married and bam had children and oof got fired,
Zowie did he live and zowie did he die,
With who the hell are you at the corner of his casket, and where the hell’re we going on the right-hand silver knob, and who the hell cares walking second from the end with an American Beauty wreath from why the hell not,
Very much missed by the circulation staff of the New York Evening Post; deeply mourned by the B.M.T.
Wham, Mr Roosevelt; pow, Sears Roebuck; awk, big dipper; bop, summer rain;
Bong, Mr., bong, Mr., bong, Mr., bong.
On a more personal note:
I am happy to hear that in a week I will probably be walking again. The bones are healing nicely and the tendon too. The sprain in my right hand is healing up, slowly, but is getting better every week. I am so ready to go out in the sun and walk, walk, walk. The several-flights-of-stairs may still be a problem as I heal, but still, it’s getting better all the time, as the song goes.
With all the time not spent at physical therapy and doctor appointments, I have been reading, writing, reading, and writing. (Well, and a little movie-and-television watching: Vicky Christina Barcelona, it was great to see you!) I have been researching my childhood backyard, Oak Ridge National Labs, part of the Manhattan Project where the very first nuclear bombs were born, and the environmental damage it may or may not have caused (the DOE and EPA don’t see eye to eye on this one, and believe me, the local papers sure as hell won’t say anything negative about the city’s main employer.) So much about this place is still classified, and everyone who worked there forced to sign papers that basically forbid them from saying anything, ever, about anything, so it’s a bit frustrating – a lot of obscure scientific journals have been pored over. Suffice it to say there’s a lot of evidence but not a lot of full disclosure. Leukemia rates, thyroid cancer rates, radioactive white-tailed deer and swallows’ nests…tantalizing data but all leading up to…what?
Writing about my childhood is odd, too – I’m not, by nature, a nostalgic person, and I’ve never been much of a “confessional” poet, so my ability to reach back and conjure up stories and poems is flexing some of my unused writing muscles. In a not-at-all-metaphorical related fact, my childhood home – not only the two-story brick building but the sight of acres of roses, daffodils, lilacs and strawberries, oak trees and woods – hey, it might have been environmentally poisonous but it was still beautiful in that fertile, Southeast-river-and-mountain-valley way – has been razed to dirt. There is literally nothing left to sift through.
But I’ve managed to put together fifty-plus pages now, a new manuscript born into a world of too-many-poetry-manuscripts-and-not-enough-publishers-or-readers. Whispers of the oak trees, the odd neighbors, my childhood friends who were all the children of physicists from other countries – the Geiger counter my father always had out at all hours, his warnings about radiation exposure from snowmen – they are all ganging up on me, demanding to be heard.
Update: Another mini-review, but it’s not poetry. The Angry Genie by Karl Z. Morgan and Ken M. Peterson is a non-fiction account of one man’s work with nuclear bombs, nuclear safety regulations, and nuclear power.
If you’re interested in whether nuclear power is safe (no), whether the government knew what it was doing when it poisoned hospital patients, African-Americans, and Native Americans in radiation experiments in the 50’s and 60’s – including a high-profile case of an evil SOB at my Alma mater, University of Cincinnati – (yes) and the scientific health hazards of working at the Manhattan Project (including descriptions of safety regulations at Oak Ridge National Labs, Los Alamos, and Hanford) – then you might want to read Karl Z. Morgan’s account of working to develop the first nuclear bomb and research what is called “health physics”. Fascinating and horrifying, this is research for my next book project about Oak Ridge – but should be required reading for every American, since guess what – you’ve probably been affected by the radioactive fallout from government experiments. The writing isn’t fantastic (this guy’s a physicist, not an English major) and the guy spends a lot of time apologizing for his bad decisions – but the information included (including the author’s theory that Karen Silkwood was murdered for speaking about about her plutonium poisoning and how many files have not been released by the government for self-protective reasons.) is vital to understanding the government, the environment, and unfortunately, some of our chronic health conditions.
Mini-review of Steven D. Schroeder’s Torched Verse Ends from BlazeVOX books
Having followed S.D.S.’s work (and blog) for a couple of years, I was happy to find his trademark wit, word-play, and pop cultural references in his first collection from BlazeVox. (The cover art, by Rebecca Loudon’s son Page Loudon, is quite remarkable as well.) Of course, I loved “Robot Rhetoric,” with all the expected robotics in-jokes (yes, Asimov’s laws are referenced) and the fairy-tale-with-an-edge nature of “All the Better to Eat You With, My Dear” and “Fairytale.”
A few sample lines from “Fairytale”
“Alone in a tangle of ambulatory trees
among tattered Safeway bags
and smokers’ aerosol coughs,
the puffs of dragons cranky overhead.
Only old growth. The woodcutter,
hauling his ax, hurries homeward…”
The quotes that separate the sections from Charles Schultz, the Simpsons, and Douglas Adams, give you a kind of map to the mind of Steve. But there is also a solemn edge to the collection, barren and toxic landscapes, and relationships with family gone sour. Schroeder is funny, but don’t mistake this for “light” verse. His underlying themes – alienation, loneliness, and a celebration of the comic elements in otherwise bleak situations – make this book a thoughtful, entertaining read.
Love Poems in Honor of Valentine’s Day
I don’t write a heck of a lot of love poetry, but here are three – all dedicated to my sweet husband G.
From The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel anthology
After Ten Years Together, We Sneak Off to Make Out in Someone’s Closet
Snuffling, bumping elbows against mops,
hitting our knees at awkward angles,
I squeeze the beeswax candle on accident
instead of you, and you hit your head
on a box of matches, scattering sparks
around us in the dark as we breathe
sweat and dust and the now-familiar soapy taste
of our skins, here amid fly swatters, empty
milk bottles, your back pink and smooth with its knots
of muscle like pulled taffy under my fingertips.
Two blind naked mole rats reaching
closer after ten years of marriage, trying to find
the magnets within us under clavicle, scapula,
hip bone, sternum, that repel and attract us,
the volcanic fissures that separate me from you.
From Rattle’s Summer 2008 issue
Advice Given to Me Before my Wedding: A Pseudo-Ghazal
Better to be the lover than the beloved, you’ll have passion.
Better to be the beloved, a sure thing, a lifetime of that.
He is more beautiful but you,
you have more power. Which is to say,
you are just like your brother. Lift your eyes
and people do what you say. Who knows why.
Men are like breakfast cereal. You have to pick one.
Fish in the sea, a dime a dozen. They are singing for you, now.
Keep your own bank account. Keep working.
Give him a blow job, and he’ll volunteer to take out the trash.
You are mine, says the beloved, and I am yours.
Whither you go I will go. Honey and milk are under her tongue.
Cancer and Taurus, very compatible.
You’re the hard-charger, he’s the homemaker.
Don’t stop wearing lipstick. Don’t put on any weight.
Don’t buy the dress too soon. If you go on the pill, your breasts will swell.
One day you might regret. You might do better.
You could do worse. One man’s as good as another.
Wear my old pearls. Here’s the blue, a handkerchief embroidered with tears.
If you won’t wear heels, you’ll look short in the pictures.
If you don’t wear a veil, people will say you’re not a virgin.
Good luck, glad tidings, a teddie, a toaster. So long, farewell.
From Ninth Letter’s Fall/Winter 2008 issue (still available on newsstands now!)
Married Life
You sing in your sleep, he told her.
He rubs her stomach counter-clockwise.
Everyone says I’m lucky she says
to have you.
She washes his hair with lemon and chamomile
to make it more golden.
He chops vegetables on a wooden tablet he made himself.
She thinks she ought to be better with her hands.
You make my life easier she tells him.
I curse like a sailor since I met you he says.
Buyer’s remorse? An empty cradle,
a woman sharper and shorter-haired than he’d married.
They break things made with care,
watch a pair of otters in the river
twisting and grooming and biting.
They look like they’re trying to drown each other.
What do I sing? She asks him.
I don’t know. I can’t understand the words.
Snatches of song like you’re underwater.
Sometimes, it sounds like you’re laughing.
Did you know there’s going to be a panel on superheroes and poetry at AWP – I would love to be there! If any of you go, please give me a full report!
(Of course, this is the first AWP I actually planned not to go to – I was supposed to be giving a reading up in Pasco, Washington instead – which my broken foot/sprained hand combo have thwarted. And they have a superhero poetry panel!! Maybe they’ll have a similar thing next year, one hopes?)
Steve Schroeder is on Verse Daily today! And Jericho Brown was up yesterday – check them both out! I’m going to try to do a quickie review of Steve’s Torched Verse ends here soon…
Quick PS: Does anyone know how to interpret this? I got a SASE back but the envelope hadn’t been sealed, so it’s empty, and the post office never stamped the stamp. Ah, sometimes I love the poetry game and the post office SO MUCH!
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.
