Well, I’m back from Portland only slightly worse for wear (I’m sure 72 hours of sleep will fix that right up) and since I received official written notification, I’m pretty sure I can share my good news I’ve been blathering on about:
My first ever grant! Washington State Artist Trust has awarded me a GAP (grant for artists) grant for my Japanese book project, titled something like “The Woman Disappears” or “She Returns to the Floating World,” depending on my mood. (Please feel free to opine on title in the comments.) Thanks so much for your comments and encouragement last week 🙂 I especially liked the guess that I had the Guggenheim, which I thought was quite optimistic and sweet! Maybe someday…
For now, I’m very excited about this and take it as a sign I should not run off and become a sculptor or something. I have oft described myself as someone who doesn’t win grants, so now I have to come up with some other descriptor. I also know that my fellow Steel Toe Books author Martha Silano, and local writer-friends Susan Rich and Ronda Broatch, were awarded grants as well. Congrats girls! The total number of writers awarded grants was about half the number of visual artists, and several less than the number of theater-related artists. Maybe we writers should start submitting slide shows with our grant applications.
The graduation party at Pacific was a lot of fun (though technically I graduated in January, we didn’t have a party then, so…) and got to visit with all my former advisors who were all sweet and enthusiastic. One of the faculty whom I adore, Sandra Alcosser, with whom I never got to work officially, actually gave me notes on my second book MS, and really encouraged me, giving me specific feedback and telling me to hit the contests hard. The difference between this particular low-res program and my residential MA at U of Cincinnati is pretty shocking in terms of – at UC you were lucky to get any outside-of-class one-on-one time with any of the workshop leaders, whom you saw once a week for workshop – at this MFA program I’m pretty sure all the faculty keep better track of me than my grandmother (some of them knew about my grant before I did!) and they are all just so supportive and generous with their time. Genuinely interested in how the students are doing, in their work. Maybe it’s just Pacific, and I know I had a great bunch of unique advisors, but sheesh! I’m thinking of adopting them as my extended family. I strongly recommend low-res programs to anyone who wants one-on-one time with great writers. If you want a lot of peer review, you’re better off at a residential program, though.
I also loved visiting with the younger students, especially this new bunch of girls who are so bright and interested in feminism etc. They’re a pretty impressive group, and when I hang around them I think “it wouldn’t be so bad teaching college.” Of course I’m always giving them advice like “learn technical writing/journalism/advertising writing so you can support yourself and not end up relying on your husband or boyfriend or starving” which I’m pretty sure is exactly what my mom said to me in my early twenties and why I worked ten years in corporate America before I focused on writing poetry. It’s my cynical nature, perhaps, but I believe artistic-type writers should also have a “trade” so they can feed themselves and have health insurance while they’re waiting for their big breaks, especially the single girls who might otherwise be tempted by some jerky rich guy. Or if they’re poets, because even our big breaks are somewhat less than inspiring financially than the fiction or memoirist’s big breaks. What do you guys think? Is that a good or bad thing to tell a young creative writer? Am I a terrible influence on young minds?
Okay, I’m going to unpack and breathe, but, oh, I am feeling happy and grateful and ready to face the rejection slips again!
Well, since I can’t tell you my good news yet (I’ll give you a hint – it has to do with a “g” word rather than a “b” word) I’ll give you a funny anecdote instead…
Yesterday, I went to my doctor and then to get my hair cut (sounds like a weird combination, but they are right next door to each other, and since I had to get some more tests done for my weird fever situation, I thought I might get my hair done as well.) The first thing I thought, after talking with a new doc at the office and then to a new hairdresser, is that if doctors listened as well as hairdressers, we would all be in better health. (No offense, Peter or C. Dale. I’m sure you are both great listeners 😉
My new hairstylist had recently visited Chile with friends, one of whom offered to take her on a tour of Pablo Neruda’s homes. We talked about how important poetry was to the culture there. Then she said, “ARE there any American poets?” And I said, “Yes, but they’re all in hiding at universities.”
This conversation led me to think that maybe all those studies showing people just aren’t aware of contemporary poetry are right on. Perhaps poets should join an American Idol tour or something. Or we should create a show called “So You Think You Can Write…” My dream judging panel would be Louise Gluck or Margaret Atwood (for the strict one) Denise Duhamel (the bubbly one) and maybe Bob Hicok (the one who has the feel-good factor but says things that make very little sense.)
Would you watch that show?
Leaving tomorrow for Portland again, be back Monday…
Back from Portland, exhausted but feeling like, although I am the middle of a crossroads (where to live, what to do for a living, figuring out general purpose of life, etc) things will work out. Got to chat with Pattiann Rogers a little while I was at school,and caught up with friends, which was cool, as well as catch a reading (Joe Millar and Claire Davis.) Stayed up too late visiting, though.
Actually had nice weather for once on the way down, so we stopped by The City of Roses’ actual rose garden, where some middle-aged folks were dancing around with scarves (Solstice celebration) and a bride with a train was walking awkwardly through the wet grass. Every color of rose was in bloom – lavender, peach, yellow, white with red stripes, tiny pink, giant pink, orange, climbing roses…and a view of a snowy volcano (Mt. Hood) in the background.
And now I’ve done my last reading for the summer, time to turn my attention to working (writing for money,) writing (poetry, not for money,) and sending out books/poetry packets. And maybe having some fun, visiting with family, my cats, and my husband.
Off to Forest Grove, Oregon to read tomorrow for the MFA program (and catch up with friends as well!) 2:45 in Marsh Hall for you Portland-ites who want to make the trip out to Pacific U.
Jeffery Bahr pointed out how Poets & Writers has snubbed me by having an article on literary writers who write about superheroes…but not a mention of “Female Comic Book Superheroes” or “Becoming the Villainess?” Honestly…
Feel free to start a letter-writing campaign on my behalf here (editor@pw.org) – let P&W know your outrage 🙂
Read Tony Hoagland’s new book of poetry essays, and really enjoyed his essay “Negative Capability: How to Talk Mean and Influence People.” I’m afraid I thoroughly agree with his assessment that meanness can elevate poetry and make it more incisive, witty, and less boring. Does this mean I’m a bad person? I was thinking about my favorite writers, and I’m afraid they all share a bit of this “mean” quality..all of Gluck, a lot of Atwood, Osamu Dazai, even that poem I love by Louis Simpson, “My Father in the Night Commanding No.” Eliot, HD, E.D.’s “Victory Comes Late,” ee cummings’ “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town,” Plath’s sense of humor, Haruki Murakami, Thomas Hardy, Ovid…Not a cuddly one in the bunch.
A belated thank-you to Kelli for calling this a thinking-blog. They may already have been nominated, but I nominate Jeffery Bahr (How else would I know what’s in Harper’s every month?) and Jessica Smith (always entertaining) and Ivy Alvarez and Kristy Bowen (both impressive thinkers) for these Thinking Blogger awards. Oh, and Mary Agner, for her great reviews of fiction and biographies and other books I might never read without her. Here’s the origin of the meme.
Bloggers invading dreamscapes: Last night I dreamed I was checking into a huge floating business hotel for a conference. At the desk, I got to introduce Rebecca Loudon to my mom, who for some reason were both attending the conference with me. All the rooms had no walls between connecting rooms and one glass wall that looked out on a cityscape.
Deb Ager has introduced me to the terrible addictive Goodreads.com. I spent 45 minutes there last night. Is that productive time? Still, a lot of fun to see what other people are reading, and I joined two groups – “Murakami fans” and “Mythic Fiction.”
I went into the local library to thank the librarian who put my book up in the “New and Interesting Reads” display. It was already checked out again! She was very sweet. Yay for good librarians who read poetry. Although she did divulge that she doesn’t usually put poetry up there, but she thought the cover was very cool.
I’m going to Forest Grove, Oregon this Thurday and again next Friday, for a reading and then my official graduation ceremony. It’ll be fun to see some of the faculty and meet some new students. They seem to get better every semester. Anyway, after that I have some downtime for the summer, which I should probably fill up with freelance work.
Glenn and I are thinking about moving a couple of hours away from Seattle this fall, to be able to afford a real home and not just a very small and somewhat dingy apartment home. We are looking at Bellingham and Port Townsend…where homes (real freestanding ones) still fall in the 300K range rather than the 750K range. I also feel this arrangement would be good for my writing. Suburbia has never agreed with me. I like the feel of the country and small towns, especially small towns with good parks, libraries, bookstores, and grocery shops (my homes away from home.) With a big city a comfortable drive away for access to hospitals, shopping, readings, etc. I think we would like to settle down and not move every six to eighteen months for a while, too. Maybe we could get a dog to go with our cats!
In a World weirdly controlled by the Blogosphere…
Today, a student of Mary Biddinger flew in from Ohio, went to the Elliot Bay Bookstore to look for a book by Peter Pereira, and by coincidence saw that I was doing my reading with Lynnell and came in to see some of the reading and say hi. Insert eerie music here…Dan dan dann…
(PS Lynnell was fantastic, funny and sharp. You would have liked her.)
Then later, my bookstore lusts not slaked by my Elliot Bay reading trip, I went into Open Books just as a stranger was buying Aimee Nez’ new book and I was able to say, hey, she’s a great writer and you’ll love the book!
Maybe it’s just all the best poets are all on my blogroll. And their fans are following me.
PS I also drove throught the Fremont naked bicycling solstice parade. Yup, you heard me.
What are you doing this rainy Saturday in Seattle?
A perfect day for Elliot Bay Book Company and a reading…
(PS My last in Seattle for the near future…)
LYNNELL EDWARDS & JEANNINE HALL GAILEY
Saturday, June 16 at 2 p.m.
Kentucky poet Lynnell Edwards, a contributor to Poets Against the War and recipient of a 2007 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, reads this afternoon from her second collection of poetry, The Highwayman’s Wife (Red Hen). “Edwards reinterprets old myths and legends, twists the old formal strategies, underdomesticates domesticity, mixes drinks, plants dahlias with a pick-axe, and laments and resurrects …” – Cecilia Wooloch.
She’s joined here by Seattle poet and journalist Jeannine Hall Gailey, who will read from her collection, Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe). “These full-bodies persona poems give dimension to the powerful (and powerless) female heroes of myth and comic books with strong voices that struggle against stereotype and silence.” – Dorianne Laux.
Emerging from the cloud of a bad sinus infection (and the accompanying fog of maximum doses of cold medicine)…
My thanks to Kelli, who answers my “good girl/bad poet” question with a quote from Margaret Atwood: “People think you can’t be a poet without being drunk. Women poets are expected to commit suicide. Someone once asked me when, not if, I would commit suicide.”
Margaret Atwood
As far as my own inspirational poetry quotes, how about this one, from a poem I have framed in my home office – Merwin’s “Berryman:”
“I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t
you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write”
and another from Atwood, her poem “The Words Continue Their Journey:”
“The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.”
From The Onion: Water as Metaphor?
I decided to put together my new poems to see how they were shaping up and found I had a somewhat cohesive 35-page manuscript. Weird. Does this mean I’ll have two manuscripts to send out this fall? Yikes. I’m considering re-arranging my Japanese-themed MS for the next round…
I’ve taken on a slightly reduced role at Crab Creek Review – as a consulting editor rather than a co-editor. This allows me to miss meetings as needed and spend a little more time on other projects, while still helping out the magazine. I’m really still hoping to start up a press this year. A part-time gig would be enough to cover the expenses (if it paid decently.) It’s a matter of time and energy, too. I want to focus on finding some work right now, and writing and submitting (which have both been neglected lately.)
Gearing up for my last Seattle reading for some time at Elliot Bay Book Company this Saturday…
Some great, realistic advice about poetry publication is available in this online excerpt from Salt Publishing’s book on the same subject. If you’re new to poetry, before you send out your work for the first or second time, read this: http://www.saltpublishing.com/info/submissions.htm
A new review of Becoming the Villainess by Diane Lockward in the April 2007 issue of Review Revue.
A few poems in the new issue of The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and a few more in the first issue of the new journal, Radiant Turnstile. I’m proud to appear there alongside my friend Jeff Walt.
Spent the weekend getting situated in the new place. Furniture keeps mysteriously appearing from the garage, and pictures on the wall…
I’ve been contemplating the expected archetype of “poet.” You know, the Byron/Plath/Breadloaf orgy thing – he/she has a dramatic personal life, gets drunk/smokes/takes drugs a lot, hangs out in seedy bars, hooks up frequently with other poets…I think I don’t fit into this particular cliche very well. In fact, I think Adam Ant wrote the song “Goody Two Shoes” about me. What do you think? Are these still requirements for being a poet?
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.
