Not at AWP Post: A Seattle Writer Walks through Plum Blossoms, Japanese Gardens, and an Art Gallery

Not at AWP: A Writer’s Week with Plum Blossoms, Art Galleries, Japanese Gardens, plus Wood Ducks and Deer

Not at Philly’s AWP this week, still avoiding crowds due to the covid-19 thing and the immune-suppressed thing. But I did try to spend the week paying attention to things that fed the spirit and inspired. When spring finally appears in our area, we get these rare sunny days when everything is in bloom and people smile and say hello to each other.

So I went for a walk through a bunch of plum trees in bloom, which smell amazing, and the petals fell down in the breeze. There are also cherry blossoms, and the daffodils have started to open, and so I spent time in the garden, trimming back maples overgrowth, giving the new apple and cherry trees more space and more mulch, and weeding and planting a new pink container “cutting” garden with things I haven’t grown before – snapdragons, carnations, cupcake cosmos, celosia, godetia. Tulip and star magnolia trees are starting to open as well. The air smells like spring, even in the rain.

The news remains grim. My social media feed is full of book signings and panels, friends who are traveling to beautiful places, or people raising money for Ukraine refugees showing pictures of destruction and bombings – it’s enough to give someone emotional whiplash. It’s hard to stay oriented, much less focus on writing or submitting poetry. The spring flowers and deer visitors (we also had a bobcat walk through again) are good reminders that there is still beauty and wildness around us. I miss seeing friends at AWP – my social life has been mostly phone calls for two years – but at least Seattle gave us some warmer, sunnier days so that we could stop and appreciate the beauty of where we are now.

A pair of Wood ducks at the Japanese Gardens

Date Night: a Visit to Seattle’s Japanese Gardens and Roq La Rue Art Gallery

This week I was working on a book review, and Glenn and I turned in our taxes, so we decided that we needed a break and had a “date afternoon” during one of our rare March sunny days this week. We visited the Japanese Gardens for the first time in a long time, where we were lucky enough to see pairs of Wood ducks, and the camellia and azaleas were in first bloom.

Then we visited my favorite Seattle art gallery, Roq La Rue, for their “Jungle” multi-artist show (click this link to preview that art). This was our first visit since they moved to a new location in Madison Valley, across from famous vegetarian restaurant Cafe Flora, and it’s a beautiful, airy space. I bought a book on women and surrealism (which somehow my art history class skipped) but missed out on my favorite painting, of a tiger surrounded by birds and butterflies which had already been purchased – cool to discover a new artist to love, though. I’ve missed going to art museums and galleries over the last two years; I’ve forgotten how much I love to be around visual art. Taking steps towards living a “normalish” life again. And I’m looking forward to AWP Seattle next year, when I hope it will be safer to attend.

It is so easy to feel depleted by the news of the war, by the feeling of missing out, by all the things we have lost in the last two years, or even just daily routines that have become ruts. Plant something new; go see some new scenery; pick up a new book on a subject you don’t know that much about. Rest can be about more than just napping; it can be making space for things that rejuvenate us. Spring seems like a good time to try breaking out of routines that have become stifling. Wishing you lots of blooms, deer, and possibly a bobcat!

Despite Everything, Spring and Solstice; Choosing an Author Photo Every Decade; and Reviews and Reading Reports

early pink cherry blossoms

Despite Everything, Spring and Solstice

We’ve had a colder March than usual, and it’s been gray and rainy, but in fact, spring is springing around us, despite war and pandemic and other apocalypses. Jonquils and hyacinths are up, and the early plum and cherry blossoms are starting to appear. I’ve heard more birdsong; my garden, mostly still asleep, is showing signs that it is actually a garden. And how is it the Spring Equinox already?

Here are some pictures of a red-winged blackbird singing, my small weeping cherry, and some white cherry branches. Meanwhile, my refrigerator died, the third pandemic appliance death in three years – this is getting expensive. At least the new fridge models are more energy efficient and easier for me to access. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the rain, which I’ll talk about later, and more exciting – I posed for my first author photo in over ten years. Now I just have to decide on one.

Choosing an Author Photo Every Decade or So

Along with spring, there’s another seasonal ritual that must be performed every decade or so: getting a new author photo done. It just doesn’t feel right to use a photo that’s more than ten years old – ten years ago I was so sick, before my MS diagnosis, barely able to walk or eat anything. I wasn’t in the same place I am now. My hair had less gray in it – and for that matter, I hadn’t started my pink hair color phase yet. So I thought, for my upcoming book with BOA, Flare, Corona, I’d do an updated author photo. I was pretty nervous because I’m a writer, not a model, and not as spry as I used to be, either. But I thought: let’s do it and then I don’t have to do it for another ten years! Heck, I think Louise Gluck used her mid-forties author photo (she looked fantastic in her mid-forties, I can remember) for at least twenty years!

Anyway, I had a great local photographer, Char Beck, out and we took pictures with a cherry tree across from my house. Anyway, if you want to help, here are the four final contenders. You can leave your vote in the comments: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, or Photo 4!

Mask-less visit to Molbaks, spring display with pink bicycle

In Other News, Reviews, Mask Mandates, Donna Tartt Reading Report, and More

So, Washington State’s mask mandate was lifted a few days ago. Glenn and I weren’t up to trying a restaurant yet, but we did make a spring pilgrimage to our favorite gardening store, Molbak’s, and bought herbs and flowers to plant. It was so nice to be able to smell things again! But I’m mostly staying masked up for the time being. While our covid rates have really dropped, especially in my county, we’re staying cautious. But it does seem like we’re getting closer to a post-pandemic period, doesn’t it? As we get better, newer treatments, and maybe even better, newer vaccines, we won’t erase this virus – it will continue to mutate and appear in waves for a while, I believe – we will not have to live in quite as much fear. I hope.

I’m trying to review a poetry book for the first time in a while – Dana Levin’s Now Do You Know Where You Are, from Copper Canyon. Exercising those reviewer muscles again. The book has made me cry three times. It’s also one of those books you really need to pay attention to and read the notes at the end of the book. It’s not a book you can skim easily and that also might make it more rewarding.

Spring tulip display at Roozengaarde gift shop

I also finished my mother-daughter book club read, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I had read this book and loved it in my twenties, but as I read it this time I read it as a writer – like, I think Donna should have made the main character a woman from the South, not a man from California, not only because I think women writers have a tendency to “male up” their protagonists to be more “accessible” or popular with male critics, but also because some things didn’t ring true, either the male or the California aspects – and I think the book could have used more humor and pop culture references. The eighties were so much fun, it seems a shame to leave out references to, I don’t know, Prince or Madonna or John Hughes movies or something. It’s also a bit of a slog in the middle – not exactly paced right for a psychological thriller. Like, you don’t want the reader thinking, she could really have edited this part out, or doesn’t this seem repetitive. (I had a similar reaction to The Goldfinch.)

It’s interesting to revisit books you read in your twenties – at the beginning of the pandemic, I re-read Middlemarch, which I hated in college, but actually enjoyed it in my forties. Maybe The Secret History is really a twenty-something’s kind of book. Anyway, I also have been on a Hitchcock bender the last year, and I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this book and the Hitchcock thriller, Rope. (Check it out if you haven’t. A really great turn by Jimmy Stewart as an amoral philosophy professor.) And actually, between this and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, The Pack. Funny how those things turn up when you read. I also really saw more parallels between this book and Flannery O’Connor’s Southern gothic moral fiction (I hadn’t read any of Flannery’s work in my twenties yet.) So, though it took some time, it was actually a captivating book with really beautiful sentences that not only reflected the dark mood of the world right now but also made me think about questions I hadn’t in a while: does fiction have to be funny? Does it have to teach us something? Do you need any likable characters? I would say if you compare this book to her classmate’s book, Less than Zero (which also was really devoid of humor – gosh, did Bennington College in the eighties knock the humor out of its English students or what?) you can see that though Less than Zero made more of a splash, I think Secret History had more of a lasting influence on other writers.

Next up on my reading list is Rapture and Melancholy: the Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’ve already enjoyed taking a look at her pictures (saved by her sister, who passed away at 90 in 1989) and reading about her amazing self-confidence as a young person. I loved Edna St. Vincent Millay as a teen, and I still enjoy reading her poems out loud – she’s funny and bracing and has great musicality. I’m interested how her diaries – and life trajectories – compare to other women poet’s diaries I’ve read in the last few years.

The Apocalypse is Knocking, First Cherry Blossoms, Cats From the Past and More History Repeating

It’s the apocalypse, but a haircut and four fillings later…

The Apocalypse is Knocking

The Apocalypse feels like it’s knocking at the door. Are we going to answer?

The picture at left was taken this week after 1) spending two hours getting four fillings in my front teeth and 2) getting my hair cut and colored. These things are a total waste of time if a maniac ends the world in nuclear war or the pandemic kills me. Yes, I think about weird stuff like that. How do we respond of existential despair and threats of war and pestilence? Do we think harder about how we spend our time, our money, our love, our votes?

So, in a way, every act – going to work, kissing your spouse, petting your cat, is an act of rebellion against nihilism. Stopping to take pictures of trees – something I started doing when I was diagnosed with terminal cancer over five years ago (I was told I did not have six months, FYI…always get a second opinion, kids!) – is to make a record of the beauty as the world continues.  Until I stop, or it stops. My philosophy.

Speaking of that, I saw the first cherry blossoms this week in Kirkland, and I also photographed another early spring bloom, quince. Quinces look like ugly shrubs in the winter, and then they have these beautiful blooms and fruit. I’ve always liked those kinds of things. Apple trees with their twisted arms and shrubby height, how fragrant their blush petals are, their fruit that hangs on ’til September. Bulbs that when you plant them seem like nothing, brown little lumps, then bring their tulip petals and daffodil trumpets during the cold early spring. So here are some pictures of March flowers. Are you writing poetry, or sending it out, or getting ready for AWP? Good job. I have been struggling with poetry’s relevancy in the last week or so, I admit. It feels…frivolous. Extraneous. I know that it is good for the soul, but maybe my soul is feeling a little fractured right now.

Me posing with brand new cherry blossoms. I don’t know what my great-great grandmother looked like at my age. She probably didn’t have pink hair. I wish we had more pictures of her.

Cats from the Past – and More History Repeating

Remember how last week I mentioned how history seemed to be repeating, with a pandemic and the threat of world war starting in Europe? My mother has been going through my grandmother – who died of covid in November of 2020 – things, her keepsakes, letters, books, pictures. One thing was a letter my mother read me from my grandmother’s aunt to her brother, my great-great uncle Jean (whom I may be named after) to check how he was doing with his case of the flu in 1922. He was dead by the time the letter arrived. Even though the Spanish flu was declared “over” in 1920, people were actually dying of it i 1921 at as high a rate as they had a year before, and of course it also spilled into 1922, obviously. (One in ten Americans died of the “1918” flu, FYI. A great account I read earlier this year was “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” by Katherine Anne Porter) Does that sound familiar? People were tired of caring about the flu, people were still dying of it, but the burden of worry and grief was too much. The world shrugged. Sorry for this sad story from my family history with echoes of our covid tale. Let me tell you a happier one.

My mother also found a picture of my great-great grandmother Elizabeth’s kitten. It was a sketch signed by the artist, and also had the name “Fifi” inscribed on the picture. The weirdest part of this is that the kitten very much resembles Sylvia: fluffy, blue eyed, white with gray points. Is my kitten a reincarnation of my great-great grandmother’s childhood pet? Did this picture register in my childhood mind when I saw it at my grandparents’ house and cause me specifically to adopt a kitten someone else was looking to rehome because she was eccentric, hard to care for, destructive and sickly? I don’t understand time loops and reincarnation among cats, but all things are possible.

Finding My Way with Poetry and Trumpeter Swans in a Week of War and Anxiety, A Change in Perspective

Trumpeter swans with barns, La Conner

In a Week of War and Anxiety, Finding My Way with Poetry and Trumpeter Swans

It’s been another week of war stress, watching the Russians march into and bomb Ukraine and its people and besides that, five people a day in my county, which is highly vaccinated, are still dying of covid but all the restrictions are being lifted anyway, so that’s fun. War with Russia trying to take over the world supervillain style and a pandemic? Why are we having a hundred years of history but only the bad parts in two years?

Not only that, everyone, including me, seems more stressed and anxious than usual. I have to remember to be kinder than usual, and my social skills have not improved from being basically isolated in my house for two years. Also, on the road trip, I saw at least three cars driving to try to kill each other. People, the highways are not your anger management strategy.

So I was pretty tense and once again, sleepless for most of the week. I tried meditation, deep breathing, exercise, and yes, prayer. I wrote to my senators. I gave to multiple charities trying to help Ukraine. But mostly I felt helpless and kept having war dreams. I dressed up and put on makeup and decided to spend some time outside. (PS This is one of my possible author photo outfits, still deciding, speaking of things that aren’t important…)

By the way, you should read this piece on CNN by my friend and poet colleague Ilya Kaminsky about his home country and the place that poetry and humor have in Ukrainian culture. And if you haven’t read Ilya’s poetry, his first book, Dancing in Odessa, or his second, Deaf Republic, are excellent – and educational – reads.

Sylvia poses with Dana Levin’s newest book, Now Do you Know Where You Are

Poetry Cannot Save Us, But…

As Ilya’s piece shows, poetry can stay important even in a time as fraught as ours. I’m currently reading Dana Levin’s upcoming book from Copper Canyon, Now Do You Know Where You Are, for a review and her work is apocalyptic in its own way and it delves into her move to St. Louis, where my father grew up. Of course, with the title, I immediately staged a photo picturing Sylvia the kitten going on a road trip with the book as reading material. Ah, some of us have different ways of dealing with stress!

In a way, reading her work was able to transport me and made me think about what poetry is and isn’t able to do. I’ve been writing poems about nuclear war, about the Doomsday clock, about being in a pandemic as a disabled person. Are these poems that will help other people? I can’t tell. But I can say they are what I need to write right now.

What are you reading right now?

Daffodils in La Conner, WA

Spending Time in Nature with Eagles, Swans, and Daffodils

Today it got up to fifty degrees, no rain, and sunset was as late as 6 PM, so we decided to take a short day trip to spend some time in nature. We went up to a famous spot for bird watching, Skagit Valley, Washington, which gets snow geese, Trumpeter swans, tundra swans, who migrate, and eagles and herons year-round.

We saw so many Trumpeter swans, a pair of bald eagles, and a few early blooms – daffodils and a crocus – at Roozengaarde Gardens, which was completely empty of visitors except for us. Getting out of the house and out of my own head helped my thinking, my mood, and my outlook. Sure, looking at eagles and swans can’t fix the world’s problems – but they do remind us of the good and beauty in life.

Mt Baker at last light, La Conner

A Change in Perspective

One of the good things about both reading and getting into nature is that they both provide a welcome change in perspective. They remind you of the larger world and your place in it. Sometimes we have both an inflated sense of our place in the world AND an inflated sense of our ability to control it. On a micro level, we can do positive things – we can plant a tree, or give money to a charity that helps people who suffer in a war across the world, or write a letter about an issue we care about. On a macro level, we are each part of a much larger system – in which we don’t matter all that much, which is both a sobering and a comforting reminder. In the face of evil, we can ignore it or we can resist it. We can be grateful for the instances of beauty all around us. In a time that seems very apocalyptic, we can choose to hope.

Leaving you with a few more shots of swans…

A Week of Insomnia, the Threat of Nuclear War and Ukraine Heartbreak, Spring Approaches but with Record Cold and Snow (plus bobkitten!)

In a pink sweater dress, dreaming of spring – and peace

A Week of Insomnia and the Threat of Nuclear War

How are you doing? If the stress of the pandemic was not enough, now we are dealing with the threat of WWIII this week as Putin invades Ukraine. The ghost of nuclear war anxiety – something I was familiar with as a kid in the eighties, where nuclear war with the then-Soviet Union was always on our minds and felt like something that could happen any day – is back. My childhood home, Oak Ridge, Tennessee was always on the bombing risk list because although it is called “the Secret City,” the secret is pretty much out that it’s a place that the US could – and definitely has in the past – manufacture nuclear weapons.

So all week I have been unable to sleep, perhaps not inexplicably. I’ve also been running a fever all week, tired, stressed. As mask mandates and vaccine requirements are lifted, the high-risk (like me) are left more vulnerable.

But as the thought of pandemic stress is starting to wane in most American’s minds, it’s still there for me, and now on top of that, heartbreaking videos of young women preparing to defend their country – teenage girls standing in front of their homes unarmed facing armed Russian soldiers, elderly Ukrainian women offering sunflower seeds to the Russians to help commemorate their dead, a 26-year-old teacher being drafted to defend her home city of Kyiv, the bombings, the black smoke, the air raid sirens – anyone with any amount of empathy must be overwhelmed, and when faced with the inaction of the US and Europe against this dictator’s Hitler-like takeover of a country, equally angry and feeling powerless. My brother, who worked extensively in Ukraine in his last job in tech, encouraged me to write to my senators and to send money to Ukrainian charities. If I could become a superhero right this second, I would go and defend the brave citizens of Ukraine.

Yellow crocus – sign of coming spring and hope

Spring Approaching and Nuclear Poems

This week was so strange – cold, sunny days, record-breaking below freezing temperatures at night, even snow – and spring flowers. It made me think of the news, the frenetic dives between politics and plague.

In the beginning of the pandemic, I dreamt repeatedly of nuclear war, and wrote this poem in response, which suddenly seems alarmingly prescient. I usually don’t post unpublished poems, but this one seemed timely. It may make its way into my newest book.

Hummingbird in sunbeam on top of bird cutout

Just a Little Bit of History Repeating

Those of you who are students of history could not be unaware of the parallels to WWI and WWII right now – the financial instability, the crazed dictator and his alliance with an equally sketchy country or two, the global pandemic and war stresses at the very same time, and the stubborn slowness of the US government’s response to both pandemic and war. You know Woodrow Wilson never even publicly addressed the 1918 flu, despite the deaths of one out of every ten Americans from it and he actively increased infection by shipping infected young soldiers around in too-close quarters? Did you know most Americans didn’t want to help Europe in WWII, despite so much evidence that Hitler was a monster and committing heinous crimes – and that we refused refugees’ applications to enter the US, especially of Jewish people, even Anne Frank? (True fact!)

And despite all of this alarming information, the birds are singing louder, the flowers are starting to show their willingness to bloom despite temperamental weather. I feel like I should be tougher, more resilient, like the flowers. My body betrays me – lying awake, uneasy dreams when I do finally get an hour or two of sleep – the fevers, dark circles, nails splitting and a nagging cough. My body knows things are really not okay, no matter what meditation apps I use, or deep breathing exercises I try, or cures of tea, soup, and vitamins.

A proliferation of camellia blossoms

In the unease of the end of February, let’s hope for a better spring – easing up of pandemic death rates, an end to Putin’s ambitious power grabs (and China’s eyeing of Taiwan in the background) that put the entire globe out of balance – a time when we can once again see our friends and family, that America defends its allies and welcomes refugees from despots. The hope that my doctors can help sort out the haywire immune system problems that keep me from living the life I want. If I can banish the discouragement brought on by plague, and war threats, the political strife in America – maybe I can write more poems. Even if the poems can’t bring peace and health to the planet, or even bring an end to my insomnia.

PS: Last night there was a bobkitten sighting on my Ring recorder – a small bobcat, and he was wagging his tiny little bobbed tail! That seems like a good sign!

The Future of Lit Mags, Birds and Blooms in February

The Future of Literary Magazines

CNN did an article this week, surprisingly, on the future of literary magazines, particularly smaller mags: Long-standing literary magazines are struggling to stay afloat. Where do they go from here? – CNN Style.  They talk about the lit mags going under – even big ones, like The Believer.

In the fifties and sixties, the CIA, among other government agencies, sunk a surprising amount of money into literary magazines like The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and many others, in order to fight the cold war, so the speak, in the art world.

For a while, universities seemed willing to foot the bill for literary magazines for the prestige, but now, they’re shutting down MFA programs and their accompanying literary magazines left and right, as unbusiness-y, unprofitable.

So what is the future of lit mags? I joked that maybe it’s in the hands of some of the richest people in the country – the ex-wives of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, aka Melinda and MacKenzie. I met MacKenzie once at a writer’s conference, not knowing who she was, assuming she was just another struggling writer. I think she might be open to a solicitation for the right kind of magazine – she’s giving away her fortune at astounding rates, which: good for her. Their husbands were never going to do much for the arts out here, even though they live here in Seattle (and the Eastside). You’d think they’d do more for local culture! But their ex-wives will be big contenders in shaping where Seattle’s non-profit scene is at, and not just that, but the whole country’s non-profit scene.

When I volunteered for several lit mags, I begged them to try to raise subscription numbers, to take adds from local businesses, to hold more creative fundraisers, anything so they weren’t so attached to either a) a university’s funding or b) a single angel investor. How can a literary magazine make a profit, and do we even want to worry about that? My answer is, if you want to keep them around, then yes. Often, lit mags are very expensive compared even to the fanciest “regular” magazines. Younger readers expect to get their content for free – even regular mags are struggling with subscriptions. So we have to give readers a reason to buy the magazine. What would that be? What do you think? Are lit mags doomed? Can someone start throwing awesome parties that might attract billionaires looking to share the wealth with the literary arts? And invite me?

First Jonquil in My Garden

Birds and Blooms in February

It’s about to freeze again tomorrow and stay below freezing for three days, so while I’m excited for these early blooms and birds, I’m nervous that the lone bumble bee I’ve seen at my garden might be doomed, much like literary magazines. Camellias and jonquils, mostly, but other things in my garden are budding up. Despite the coming freeze, spring is coming. It’s just taking it’s time this year, a little stop and start.

Our bird visitors this week included lots of Anna’s hummingbirds and a less common visitor – a red-winged blackbird. It was mostly rainy, as you can probably tell, which doesn’t make for the best pictures, but I thought you’d enjoy seeing them anyway. Also, my cat Sylvia with a Valentine’s Day ribbon, just to mix it up.

Happy (Almost) Valentine’s Day, Faux Spring, and Thinking About Changes in Seattle’s Lit Scene

early pink rhododendron

Happy (Almost) Valentine’s Day!

We had a beautiful sunny day today, and Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a rainout, so we tried to get out and about and soak in as much “faux spring” – that’s what our weather person called it – as we could. I heard a robin singing this morning, and downtown, I saw a forsythia blooming (though ours hasn’t quite done that yet).

With the Superbowl AND the Olympics, it seems to be a sports-crowded time to celebrate what’s traditionally a romantic weekend! That’s okay. I’m pretty sure we can have Glenn watch the Bengals (hopefully – they’re the team of my former hometown, Cincinnati) win, have me watch some figure skating (so much scandal this year!), and also find a way to carve out time for some romance.

We took a trip over to Seattle to Open Books to buy a few books before it moves from Wallingford to Pioneer Square -a big change after 20 plus years in the same location. It made me think about how much Seattle’s lit scene has changed since we moved here in late 2000.

I also goofed around with possible author photo outfits (did I mention I have author photos for BOA coming up and I’m terrified?) with Glenn taking the pictures with our “fancy” camera. What do you think? Do either of these tops work? I think this hair color is a bit too rose gold – I think I’ll skew it a bit pinker for the photos. Argh! How do regular poets do this? Pictures are hard!

Glenn and I in the sunshine, Kirkland

Faux Spring in February

It’s already felt like a too-long, gloomy winter, and many of my friends have already traveled at least once to sunnier climes to relieve their winter blues. I can’t do that yet, so getting a little bit of 50-degree sunshine in February is a real gift. A few rhododendrons and forsythia blooms, and I can’t wait ’til the cherry trees start blooming.

The birds are definitely more active than they were a few weeks ago. This forsythia was blooming a door down from Open Books. Walking along Lake Washington in Kirkland is a nice break from cloudier, moodier Woodinville. We also picked up pink roses and tulips to brighten up the house so it felt a bit more romantic and spring-like.

Kelly Davio and I in front of Open Books in 2010

Thinking About Seattle’s Changing Literary Scene

Yes, our trip today to Open Books – the first place I visited as a tourist to Seattle on the recommendation of one of my English professors at University of Cincinnati – reminded me of how things have changed since we moved here. Pioneer Square – a rowdier, bar-filled tourist spot that once housed Elliot Bay Books – will be the new home of Open Books, which lived in sleepier, more residential Wallingford since before I came to the town as a visitor. Elliot Bay moved to hipster – but now more “corporate condo” than “hipster artists and bars” – Capitol Hill. I used to meet friends at Open Books – see pictures – and I’ve had almost every launch reading for my books there, too. See a picture of one of them below. I’ll have to make new memories at the new location.

Book Launch in 2011 with a bunch of friends, Open Books

I used to spend hours in the rundown former funeral home that housed the Richard Hugo House when I first moved to town, imaging I was in a real artist’s place – and then I volunteered there for small local lit mags for a while. Back then, yes, there were drug deals in front of the place, it wasn’t at all accessible, and there was a rumor of a baby ghost in the basement (along with a baby’s coffin) but it felt charmingly quirky, much like the area of Capitol Hill, where you could get a drink at a dive bar with pinball machines or papier mache unicorn heads. Now, Hugo House is housed in the fairly cold, corporate grounds of a re-done condo building (and paying much more than it used to on rent, which leads to more fund-raising and less, well, artist-nurturing), and it just doesn’t feel as cozy and welcoming and well, artistic. It is more accessible (bonus!) and has bathrooms you don’t accidentally get locked in…and no ghosts (yet…)

The places that I’ve relied on to meet other writers – like Open Books and Hugo House – are changing, and have changed, and while I’m sad about that, I recognize that a city doesn’t stay the same, and a literary scene doesn’t stay the same. During the pandemic, we haven’t visited Seattle much, and we used to go every weekend, to hang out, to visit Pike Place Market or one of the many bookstores and coffee shops, always exploring new (to us) neighborhoods. Seattle’s increasing homeless problem, litter, and crime are unfortunate side effects of growth and some serious housing affordability problems as well as a lack of resources for the poor, the mentally ill, and people who age out of the foster system. Our politicians have promised fixes but haven’t (as yet) delivered. Does this affect the art scene in Seattle? Yes. Did the pandemic hurt our art scene? Unquestionable. Do we have AWP coming out next year? Yes we do! Do I want to show Seattle in its best light to my friends who come to town? Yes I do! So I will keep exploring to find out where writers and artists are hanging out now. Maybe I’ll find the next new cool artistic hangouts. I hope so.

And another problem – I live in an “ex-urb” of Seattle, Woodinville, a sleepy area of farms and wineries and a surprising number of hidden charming corners, but it has almost nothing that you could call “culture.” No art galleries, barely any indie shops, we have one Barnes and Nobles and a couple of coffee shops besides Starbucks but it’s been hard for me to build a community out here – and I encountered similar problems in 2012 when I was Redmond’s Poet Laureate, working hard with schools and librarians and visual artists and local language clubs to try to generate interest in poetry and art. Even though Redmond has Microsoft and a fair number of millionaires, and Bellevue’s real estate is now more expensive than Manhattan (said our local paper this weekend,) it’s tough to attract people or the funds to create cultural centers where art, music, theater, and poetry might thrive. I’ve dreamed of throwing salons in the area, which is beautiful, and I’m sure has a lot of artists, musicians, and writers in it, it’s just…I can’t find them, or we have no gathering places.

If I had unlimited funds and time, I might build a poetry bookshop/coffee shop/art space myself here in Woodinville, where real estate isn’t quite as pricey. I lived in Napa for a year, and they had a wonderful mix of wineries, indie book shops and restaurants, and unique gardens, farms, and markets that just made for a lovely quality of life. (Fires, earthquakes, and high taxes – all endemic to California – notwithstanding.) They even had their own writer’s conference each year! We need to start something like that. I’ll keep dreaming…

Happy February, Inching Towards Spring, Hoping for a Better Month, A Nice Review on Instagram (and Thoughts on Instagram for Poets)

Steller’s Jay in dim morning light

Happy February! Inching Closer to Spring…

Welcome to February, everyone, which means not only are we a week away from Valentine’s Day (and the Superbowl, if you’re into that – go Bengals!), we are inching closer to spring! Although most of my garden looks dead right now, there are some bulb shoots showing green in the ground. My cherry trees have buds on them. Blooms can’t be far away!

Most of the US got clobbered by a winter storm this week, but here we’ve just been socked in by the same cold gray rain. I felt very lucky to get this shot of a Steller’s Jay taking flight on one of our cold dark mornings, and the light was so strange the bird appears almost turquoise. I was lucky to have any days bright enough to even get pictures. Hopefully there is more sun ahead…

New Haircut

New Hair, New Month, Hopefully a Better Month?

I felt well enough, finally, to go out into the world after almost a month of being stuck at home sick, and got my hair done. I don’t know if it’s perfect, but it did make me feel better. I hadn’t had my hair done in a while because my hairdresser (triple vaxxed) had caught covid right before I got sick and we’d had to cancel about three consecutive appointments. Anyway, I’ve been feeling depressed and bedraggled, so this was a good way to start the month in a new light. We are supposed to have a week of sun in front of us, and finally – finally – Omicron cases seem to have peaked in our area (they peaked in Ohio weeks ago.)

After a string of depressing things in my writing life, including a long string of rejections and some other stuff which I can’t go into, but trust me, depressing, I am trying to look forward.

Pussy Willows – signs of spring?

So I’m looking forward to several things this month. Writing something new, maybe visiting a bookstore in person, focusing on Flare, Corona‘s cover art, edits, etc, and hopefully doing some more fun things than just lying at home in bed sick. Maybe even visit an art gallery, a botanical garden, the zoo?

Are you looking forward to anything particular in February?

A Nice Instagram Review of PR for Poets (and Thoughts on Poets and Instagram)

For those poets who aren’t on Instagram yet, or do not feel confident using it, I have to say, I was so grateful for this Instagram book review yesterday – and unlike some reviews, this generated sales – at least as well as I can measure on Amazon sales rank – right away! What a shock!

Thank you to TheBookshelfCafeNews for the shoutout and poets, go get on Instagram and let’s start talking about poetry books there. I am still getting used to the medium (sometimes I forget hashtags, and I’m still not confident in my ability to post “stories”) but think it is definitely worth being on there. There’s less of the negative vibe that can sometimes get overwhelming on Twitter, plus as many pictures of baby animals or cool art as you want to include in your feed. Yes, it’s still owned by evil overlord Facebook (or Meta) – but seems slightly less evil? Maybe this is because I only follow poets, Ina Garten, and a lot of red panda, fox, and zooborns accounts. Anyway, I encourage you all to give it a try. You can follow me there at @webbish6 – I mostly post pics of birds and flowers, the occasional selfie and poem – a lot like the blog, without all the words. Also, if you have helpful tips for others (and me) who are writers on Instagram, please leave them in the comments!

Still Sick with Ice Fog, Thinking About Cover Art, And When Will the Pandemic End?

Spotted Towhee

Still Sick with Ice Fog

Well, we had another week of depressing freezing temperatures with thick fog that trapped in polluted air, so it was basically like 1800’s London all week. I was still fighting off an illness, which morphed into a more dangerous (still not covid, but a different dangerous) illness, so I was trying to stay out of the hospital by constantly annoying my doctors, drinking fluids like it was going out of business, and basically sleeping 24 hours a day. Also, our five-year-old microwave (that also acts as our kitchen venting) exploded, and we couldn’t find another one anywhere. And every time I groggily woke up, the news would be all “highest death rates from covid ever” and “possible war with Russia on Ukraine border.” I think I’m on the upswing, finally. I am looking forward to a healthier February! With hopefully better headlines.

I did a little thinking about the importance we place on productivity, and how the pandemic has forced people into thinking harder about that. How being chronically ill with an immune deficiency forces you to think hard about your choices, how sometimes you’re just not going to be productive, and you have to sort of accept that. Your value isn’t only from what you produce. It’s sort of a Zen realization, to try to learn to be okay with not doing anything, sometimes.

Thinking About the Importance of Cover Art

One thing I did do this week was think about cover art! BOA sent me an author questionnaire and also some forms about cover art for my upcoming book, which sent me into a deep dive and thinking about what the cover of “Flare, Corona” should look like. First, I found out there’s an anime character from a series called “Fairy Tails” named “Flare Corona.” So that was a discovery. Then I found out it’s sort of hard to find a perfect picture of an eclipse with a corona and solar flares, and even if I do, does that really convey the ideas that the book contains? In other words, does it do what good cover art should do – make you want to read the book? I also thought about using a close up from an MRI of a brain lesion, which is only black and white but sort of cool, a black hole with a white halo, but ultimately nixed the idea as too depressing. Most of my books have an identifiable human female on the cover, so going more abstract would be a departure.

Anyway, comment with your feelings on the subject! I’d love to hear from you!

Female bufflehead, a coot, and mallards – commotion on the water

When Will the Pandemic End?

Have you seen many doctors making predictions about when the pandemic will end lately? Yes, me too. With the incredibly fast and wide spread of Omicron and the rise of vaccines around the world, some scientists are saying we may be approaching “endemic” levels – where the pandemic becomes a long-lasting, more normal infection, like how the flu of 1918 came back several times in the last hundred years in different forms to kill a ton of people, but not as many as the first time around. Some countries, like Sweden, are putting protective measures into place for the first time, as their economy get walloped by the Omicron variant, and others, like the UK, have been dropping their defenses (probably resulting in higher death rates). Given the US’s very high death rates, we probably should still be testing, wearing masks, etc, for a little while longer. But (caveat: I am not a doctor, just a poet with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology who has always been interested in virology) I do have optimism that eventually this virus will burn itself out, and every time humans are exposed again to this particular virus, we are less likely to over-react to it. Now, as an immune-suppressed human who was knocked out for three weeks with NOT covid, you know, I don’t want people to get too casual too soon – we still don’t have access to a lot of anti-virals (not until after March, according to one of my doctors, for the Pfizer pill unfortunately – and the hospitals are still overwhelmed) – but maybe we can feel hopeful that by spring or summer, we can start moving towards a new phase of pandemic. Vaccine makers are working on omicron-specific versions, but more important, smaller vaccine companies are working on more shelf-stable, cheaper, more widely-working vaccines for the world – vaccines that would be less expensive, easy to distribute, wouldn’t require extreme refrigeration, and work on more variations of the virus. This would help the whole world, instead of just wealthier countries, which would help the virus spread less easily and develop fewer dangerous mutations. (Remember that four variations of coronaviruses have been causing colds since we were kids – this would just become a fifth variation, we hope.) So, that’s me with some thoughts on the subject, but we’ll really have to wait and see. I’m hoping by my birthday we will finally looking at a little relief.

Signs of Spring, a Week of Illness – Covid or Flu?, Hummingbirds, Hawks, and Deer, and the NEA application

Early pink rhododendron bloom

Signs of Spring and a Week of Illness

This week has been rough. I’m sure like many of you, I came down with something (fever, stuffy head, cough, sore throat, headache) after a dental visit last week, and that meant: doctors telling me I probably had covid and giving me really depressing info about the lack of covid treatments available, then an instant covid test, and then more covid tests (the PCR test was really hard to find – I couldn’t get it until six days after I started feeling sick, and I had to drive 45 minutes each way, walk in the cold mud and rain to construction area tent, so that was fun).

The good news is the tests were negative – the bad news is I’m still pretty sick, which now my doctors have decided is probably flu. Anyway, I’ve been lying low, not a lot of mental energy, but managed to get a few shots on sunny days to show you spring may actually be happening, eventually, despite our cold, gray, relentlessly depressing January weather.

Red-Tailed Hawk looks directly at camera

Hummingbirds, Hawks, and Deer

The good news is, though it’s easy to forget, I actually live in a beautiful place – it’s just when it gets cold and wet or icy outside, I’m not able to get out enough to appreciate it. This red-tailed hawk was sitting low to the ground, and happened to look right at me as I took this shot, and we happened to have a clear blue sky that afternoon. Hawks showing white feathers are supposed to be a good omen, but a hawk low to the ground looking you in the eye is supposedly a portent of death. So, I hope it’s the first, not the second.

We also saw our first deer of the year, nibbling on our pink camellias – which like the rhody, look like they are very close to blooming, even though it’s only January. The hummingbirds are here all year, so we just have to keep up a feeder and a bird fountain. These are shots of the same male Anna’s hummingbird. He was showing off his crazy feathers.

My pink camellia this morning – looking like almost-spring!

Reading Report – All Sort-of Plague-Related – and NEA Application – Done!

The one good thing about being sick all week is I caught up on my reading! Pale Horse, Pale Rider is Katherine Anne Porter’s semi-autobiographical account of living through the 1918 flu as a single journalist in Denver, when the hospitals were overcrowded and they couldn’t just order an ambulance as they were too busy. Her vivid hallucinations while sick for a month with the flu are unforgettable (she sees the nurse’s hands as ‘white tarantulas’), as is the ending. I also read Katherine Mansfield’s short story “Garden Party,” about an upper-class family organizing a party as their poorer neighbor falls down dead in front of their house. Again, feels so relevant.

To add to the cheer, I’m also reading Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human with my little brother, and though it is bleak – written in 1948’s Japan, about an individual who suffers multiple childhood sex abuse traumas,  grows up to be a cartoonist, tries to commit suicide, is put in an insane asylum – my brother made the astute observation that it shares a lot with Kafka’s Metamorphosis. It’s been read historically as thinly-veiled autobiography, but I’d argue it’s more ambitious than that – it’s Dazai’s attempt to embody the suffering, corruption and dehumanization of Japan during the WW II years.  It’s the second-best selling book in Japan of all time, and you can see why – despite the bleak subject matter, Dazai’s writing is stunningly beautiful, even in translation (he writes with a different pronoun that the Japanese “Watashi” for “I,” except in the prologue and epilogue, but that can’t really be translated into English, which is a shame). If you want to discover Dazai but want something a little more upbeat, read his warm and funny collection of modernized fairy tales in Blue Bamboo. I’ve been teaching myself Japanese for almost a year now, and I’m sad that I’m still not fluent, but I am starting to pick up a little more on the slight variations of words – pronouns, seasons, puns. Some part of me wish I’d picked something easier, like Italian, but Japanese literature is kind of an obsession of mine, and I’d love to read these books in the original, eventually. Or at least be able to have a really simple conversation in Japanese.

The other accomplishment I’m proud of is that my NEA application is in and done. I mean, I did it with a fever and on a lot of cold medicine, so it may not be the best application I’ve ever done, but it is finished! I was in isolation while waiting for my PCR test (two of my doctors told me that I for sure had covid, based on my symptoms, so better safe than sorry) and the only thing that is good for is reading and getting grant applications done. Wishing you health and safety this week, but if you do get sick – either this nasty flu or covid – I hope you have a good window view, a stack of books, and someone to bring you unending soup and hot tea.

Oh, and on top of reading an account of inadequate medical care during the 1918 flu, you can read this account of a New York Times writer trying to get the Pfizer pill for her 73-year-old mother – it is harrowing to realize how hard it is to get adequate medical care for covid right now, the same as Katherine Anne Porter’s experiences in 1918 in a lot of key ways: When my mom got COVID, I went searching for Pfizer’s pills | The Seattle Times.