I feel positively C. Dale Young-esque! I’m sneaking off to California for a few days with G to relax – and possibly check out some neighborhoods for rentals…and I’m even taking Virgin America Airlines! He is such a good advertisement for them. Plus, the tickets were super cheap.
Yes, I think I need a break from backhoes, rain, and temperatures below 50 degrees for a few days…I’m packing skirts and sandals, which I haven’t been able to wear in the Seattle area yet.
Anyway, you guys be good til I get back!
Happy Earth Day! And happy backhoe accident/morning explosions!
The bad news:
The contruction workers who’ve been tearing up the lot next to our rental house back-hoed our power, phone, and cable lines at 9 AM this morning, making our morning more exciting, causing several explosions on our front porch, and also burning the metal junction box – which got so hot that it welded shut. Calls to: landlord, rental agency, power company, phone company, electrician. Maybe fixed by tomorrow? No heat, no hot water, no light, no phone, no internet. And six hundred people digging up our rental yard to re-lay power lines.
The good news: Thank goodness for the Centrum residency cabin! So Glenn was able to come over and shower, eat a hot lunch at Centrum, save all of our frozen food in the residency cabin mini-freezer. We even found the internet at the Commons (thanks Peter!) The poor kitties may be a little cold, but at least Glenn has an escape from a potentially very disturbing day. The only downside? Because they are removing some creosote material from the Fort Warden beaches, there are closed parts and helicopters removing creosote-laden beach logs.
Note to self: Residencies can be very practical, as well as creatively helpful. Just mind those helicopters!
Other note: I have been painting a watercolor a day. I am not a very good artist.
- At April 20, 2008
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In haibun today, snow in April
2
There is a snowstorm outside. With sleet. Seriously. Someone order me a desert.
And, a poem of mine is up on Haibun Today, um, today!
Hello! I’m writing from the first day of my residency at Centrum in Port Townsend, a little cabin – all mine – overlooking the white stone cliffs and beaches around Fort Warden. My cabin has three bedrooms and a baby grand piano. No internet though, so blog posts may be fewer and farther between. I have already played the piano (in tune!) and I plan to sleep in all four of the beds. I feel so jacked up and excited. I brought my sketch pads and stuff too, I haven’t done any visual artist-type stuff in a long time and spend so much time being in-control, analytical girl that will be nice to be more laid-back and focusing on the, you know, creative bohemian self. I was thinking about the fact that I pretty much actively suppress my inner poet (you know, the dreamy, sensitive version of me, not the kick-ass, gets stuff done, doesn’t take crap version that spent time in the business world) almost all the time. Discipline, I think to myself as I write queries, work to finish articles before deadline, negotiate payments, send out submissions…I rarely give myself permission to do what I want during the day. I have a lot of rules for myself: work first, then blogging and internet surfing, no television during the day, healthy snacks instead of junk food. Some exercise every day (although right now most of my exercise time is being spent at physical therapy.) These are all probably requirements of being able to work from home. But I need some time to indulge, to be unstructured, to dream. This residency may be a key to that. And, right now, I have to go shopping for snacks and drinks. I’m afraid this creative outlet may also channel my inner six-year-old’s eating habits.
The right response to why poems don’t rhyme, etc: a funny little piece over at Slate responding to “non-poetry-people” questions about poetry: http://www.slate.com/id/2189318/
(Addendum: My husband the engineer’s comment on the article: Doesn’t Pinsky know any contemporary poetry? Way to reach out and introduce new poets to the masses, man!)
And, the Poetry Foundation features Colleen McElroy, a mentor and friend of mine who also happens to be a terrific poet and fierce storyteller. She really encouraged me when I first came to Seattle, and has continued to be a feminist (and a humanist) heroine.
Here’s to a more right-brained Jeannine, who will be more creatively productive (plus write some reviews and other admin work…) I’m crossing my fingers. Or, maybe I’ll just watch the blustery clouds and the deer and play the piano.
A better day today. I woke up and looked out the kitchen window, and there were three deer with their legs folded up, sleeping in my yard, a mom and two half-yearlings. And then there were hummingbirds, a couple of stellar jays – it was like waking up in a Disney cartoon! How can you be grumpy with that? Even on another miserably cold April (!!) day…
Finally got to see Juno, which I really liked. It was nice to actually enjoy a film, as opposed to suffering through it. Honestly, how many good, fun movies has Hollywood made in the last couple of years? I’m counting them on one hand – Little Miss Sunshine, Stranger Than Fiction…okay, I’m out…
Oh, and if you’ve been sending me e-mail at my hotmail account, and haven’t heard back, that’s probably because hotmail has been randomly blocking people, I just found out – so write again or use the form at my web site and I’ll either try to unblock you or give you a supersecret alternate e-mail address to use.
I’m turning 35 in two weeks. Cannot believe how old I am now. 30 didn’t hurt me, but 35? Ouch.
Since I sometimes get e-mails about freelancing, I thought it would be good to post a link to Salon’s “Tips for Freelancers” – supposedly tax tips, but other useful tips as well. Check out the letters, which contain more tips from readers.
It’s NaPoWriMo day 1001. Or at least that’s how it feels.
Yes, watching Kurosowa’s “The Hidden Fortress” and George Lucas’ “Star Wars: A New Hope,” in the same night, was surprisingly fun. And why, you ask, was I available to watch such a marathon? Well, my stupid problems (neck, joint, immune system/connective tissue, etc) were flaring up again, so I was basically stuck flat on my back. After a punishing session with a physical therapist and a chiropractor today, I don’t feel any better. So I was feeling kind of grumpy, healthwise, today, and wrote a grumpy, self-pitying, health-problem-based poem-a-day poem. It’s really just a remix of the themes in this poem. I told Kelli I wasn’t posting my drafts because I wasn’t happy with them, but she told me to post them anyway, so here goes:
They Told Me I Was Special
Poof!
I was supposed to go to a reading on Wednesday for the Wompo Anthology, but as per doctor’s orders, I will be resting my pretty head (neck) instead of partying with my girl-poet friends. Boo.
Endicott Studio’s Journal of Mythic Arts features five Red Riding Hood poems today, including Anne Sexton’s, Carol Ann Duffy’s, and mine! Check out their Sunday poems!
Things have been happening – even though I haven’t been blogging – a new baby, for instance, in the family (a girl niece for me, after all my nephews!) Happy congrats to my brother-in-law Jason and his wife Jen for his new little baby girl, Elena! So cute! And so glad to have another girl in our male-heavy family tree…
Speaking of family trees, my father, doing genealogy research of his family, found out we are related to a member of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Virginia, where the legend of Virginia Dare originated (the first English girl born in the colonies, who mysteriously disappeared and was rumoured to have transformed into a white deer – and there are a group of white deer who run the Southeast coast all the way up to New York State – as well as rumoured to have joined the local Croatoan Indians and had children with grey eyes, with people from the Virginia area claiming even now to be descended from her. There’s even a blog, called something like the Lost Colony DNA project.) And we found some of our descendents in the local Croatoan tribe (connected to the Cherokee and maybe the Hatteras? We think?) if the government records are to be believed, who fought in the Revolutionary War on the American side, even though the American government wasn’t all that friendly to them. I’m not usually genealogy girl, but this story was pretty interesting. The internet is full of conspiracy theories about the lost colony, kind of an early 1600’s American X-File. Did they leave? Did they form a new colony with the Croatoans? Were they wiped out by disease, or hostile neighbors? Not only were no bodies found, the houses themselves (everything except the fences) disappeared, with only the word “Croatoa” carved into a fence post. They think this colony was the one referred to in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, by the way.
The tulips are finally blooming, although it’s not warm yet. The little “Eisbar” Flocke has finally gone public (http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/eisbaer/videos.html for video footage.) I’m planning a short trip out to California, trying to update my notes for the high school class at Centrum, and I’m getting ready for my first ever residency at Centrum starting next week (a place of my own for the first time since I was 21! Can I write without cats and husband around? Let’s find out!) My neck went out again (is this one of those writing-related injuries like carpal tunnel?) so I haven’t been at the computer much. Darn occupational hazards!
Quick poem in honor of the Virginia Dare/White Doe legend (there’s also a classic French fairy tale called “The White Doe” about a girl, allergic to the sun, who is turned by an evil fairy curse into a white doe by day…)
The White Doe
Poof!
NaPoWriMo Day 7
Yay, got an acceptance from Willow Springs of a longer (and somewhat darker) poem from my third MS, so that was good news.
And going to see Lucille Clifton in Seattle tonight! It’s totally worth the five hour round trip…I love her persona poems especially.
Update: My poem “Love Story with Fire Demon and Tengu” is up on the Haibun Today site today, Monday the 7th!
http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com/2008/04/jeannine-hall-gailey-love-story-with.html
She Justifies Running Away
Poof!
Mini-Review of Red Jess, by Judith H. Montgomery (Cherry Grove Collections)
Blood runs through the pages of Red Jess; the blood of a heart pounding out of control in “Gallop,” the blood of secrets in “Gretel’s Spell,” the blood of birth (and a red pen) in “A Cultural History of Fences,” and the blood of passion in “Ophelia, in Winter.” Nature plays a central role in many of these poems – flowers, trees and birds (especially the hawk) lovingly described – as well as the heat and burn of relationships. From “Gallop: “The day before she turns five, Amy hears/ doctors speak of her galloping heart…When she is alone, she listens for the horse/…for hoofbeats in her blood.”
- At April 04, 2008
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Ahsahta Press, Dog Girl, NaPoWriMo
- 0
NaPoWriMo Day 4
Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep this up, especially as I’ll be away from home tomorrow, but…
She Should Have Been in Politics
Poof!
Mini-review of the day: Dog Girl, by Heidi Lynn Staples from Ahsahta Press
Ahsahta’s books are always beautiful objects…I haven’t, in the past, I admit, been a big fan of Heidi Lynn Staples work – I saw it as being poetry so insistent on “interrogating the language” that it was on the edge of not giving anything to the reader, resolutely nonsensical and overly in love with its own puns. So, I was pleasantly surprised by this collection – perhaps I like wordplay more than I used to, perhaps the poems about marriage tempted me, the interest she has in Japanese forms that I share, that epigraph from Grimm’s obscure (but loved by me) fairy tale, Jorinde and Joringel – but something drew me in. Here are some playful and passionate lines from one of a series called “Prosaic:” “His hands touched me with a whole science…His eyes shined with hackers. I opened my codes.” There are some surprisingly touching poems here about the loss of a baby (“Not, You No” and “Arson” among them) that transcend wordplay and ring with emotional impact.
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.
