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?
Come on out tonight to Kirkland’s Parkplace Books to see me read with Deborah Woodard (and Lana Ayers, host extrodinaire!) 7 PM. Be there or be some kind of trapezoid.
Also, see Mary Biddinger’s first book interview with Kate Greenstreet here. She’s witty and self-deprecating – I especially liked the part about opening the first box of books with a jeweled dagger.
PS Did I tell you the story about finding my new local library (we now live in a small-townish, more rural area called Bothell)? I walked in the doors, and the first thing I saw was my book on the “Librarians’s Picks” display rack, with a little sticker on it that said “new and interesting.” The book looked like it had actually been read, maybe dropped in a puddle or two, and chewed on. I took this as proof that someone outside of my friends and family had read it. Cheers to Bothell librarians!
First of all, thanks for your good wishes!
My regular blogging schedule has been interrupted by the need to unpack and unload boxes, pack up and clean the old rental place, and commute between them three times away with carloads of extra “Stuff” we couldn’t fit in the U-Haul/didn’t have time to pack. Moving is such a pain. Also, my writing biz things – envelopes, staplers, stamps, notebooks – have never really been organized, so I keep finding (a cup of highlighters! The draft of a poem! Sases!) in boxes full of shampoo or cartons of crackers. I hope at some point we can settle down someplace. Although Glenn and I have been married 13 years next month, we’ve never lived in any one place longer than two years. Are we pathological or what? I mean, we’re in our mid-thirties now. Don’t most people in thier mid-thirties have a house and two cars and regular jobs and kids and some kind of deeply worn groove? I fear that we have missed some switch, some marker we should have been paying attention to.
Last night I bought and read Haruki Murakami’s new book of interwoven stories, “After Dark.” Its main conceit – two sisters, one a beautiful model who does nothing but sleep, the other a ferociously smart and independent insomniac – was fascinating to me, especially as I have been writing about the “Snow White” story lately. When I was a kid, Snow White was the only non-blonde princess option. But I never really “got” her story – really, her main action is non-action, which wasn’t very interesting. Murakami’s prose style (as far as I can tell – of course I’m reading a translation) is really delightful to me, detached yet playful and poetic.
I read an interesting post on responsible and smart corporate blogging, here. It makes me think about what it means to be a “responsible” blogger in general. Did you know a kid, a few years ago, got fired from Google for posting about the differences between Microsoft and Google’s benefits? Do poets have the same kinds of vested interests, for instance, talking about various literary magazines or influential poets could keep them from a job or from getting published? This guy also talks about the need for transparency and honesty – a blogger who never says anything negative has no cred. I think that’s probably true.
I’m reading a bunch of times in the next few weeks – on the 6th, at ParkPlace Books in Kirkland, WA, on the 16th with Lynnell Edwards at Elliot Bay Bookstore in downtown Seattle, then the 22nd at Pacific’s Alumni Reunion in Forest Grove, Oregon. I’d love to see some folks at any of these readings, so come out!
I discovered the newish online journal Siren because of the illustrious Dorianne Laux’s recommendation. Now I’m up there, along with fellow Crab Creek editor Natasha Moni. Check out their newest issue!
My Heart’s Not Broken
So, aside from a very sore back, I’ve returned from the stress echo completely intact. My heart, aside from a little minor arrhythmia, isn’t infected with anything, and doesn’t show any other problems. I got to hear it – the tech played the rhythm, that tell-tale lub-dub, and I got to see the fuzzy pictures. The fun part was running a thirty-percent incline at five miles an hour. Yah. Good times.
Featured Fractured Fairytales
In Poetry News, I am honored to be the featured poet at Endicott Studio’s Journal of Mythic Arts Spring Anniversary issue. Some fantastic essays on the origins of various fairy tales – Rapunzel, the Arabian Nights – some wonderful art work. And great lists in some of the essays of which poets and fictionists to read if you’re interested in this kind of thing. I could read it for days. Just like those lolcats pictures.
Happy Memorial Day!
Last night, my first night in the new place, I dreamed I moved into a haunted house that was trying to kill me with clouds of dust. I woke up at 4 AM in the middle of an asthma attack. How’s that for good signs? LOL. It smells a little like damp dog in here, and since our landlord did not have a dog, it must be from a previous owner. Anyone know how to get rid of that kind of smell? We’ve already shampooed the carpets and washed the curtains, but the smell is still there. I’m paying several hundred dollars more a month for this? Urghh…must leave overpriced…rental…area…go back…Midwest…Colorado…Arizona…anywhere…
Exhausted from packing and unpacking, but a few bits of news…
Two new poems in the new Spring 2007 Harvard Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. If that’s your bag, baby, it’s a pretty interesting academic journal. I enjoyed it, anyway.
A new poem up at the new issue of In Posse Review.
Got a note from Breadloaf, didn’t the fellowship I applied for but I’ve accepted as a regular applicant (this is the second time.) Still can’t afford that brutal tuition fee, though. Love to go, hate the price…
Anybody want to donate $2K to a good cause? I’ll send you my Paypal address…and dedicate my next book to you 🙂
Remember to congratulate Kelli on her graduation day!
Hope you are all barbequing and enjoying the day off, while soberly reminding yourself of the sacrifices of veterans. See how those two things don’t really go together? Hmm, how to combine sober reflection on military concerns with fun celebration of the beginning of summer…maybe by watching “Stripes?”
I have a nephew in the Navy, one of my brothers is an Air Force vet, my Dad is a former Marine, and both my grandfathers faught in WWII. It’s quite a military family. Thanks, guys!
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.
