Jeannine Gailey @ Webbish6

Update: Thanks to Ivy for finding this cool Villainess name-finder!

Got a copy of Black Warrior Review with Aimee Nez’ chapbook – experimental-looking poems, prose poems, more challenging work. The whole issue was a lot of fun, but of course Aimee’s work was my favorite. I’m going to have to add this journal to my list of faves.
The new Writer’s Chronicle has an absolutely delightful interview with Alicia Ostriker, including questions from other celebrity poets, like Gerald Stern’s “Who is your biggest Male influence?” and Eleanor Wilner asking about Language Poetry. Read it! I have another person on my list of favorite cranky feminist poet list!
OK, I don’t like those blog question taggy things, but I was tagged by Kelli, so this time I’ll do it 😉

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was….When my mother read to me from her college poetry class book, XJ Kennedy’s Introduction to Poetry. I especially liked the ballads and the funny stuff (“Life, Friends, is Boring” and “Tomb to the Unknown Citizen.”

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and… I went to a school that had poetry recitation contests in the 5th and 6th grade. And I won two years in a row! Boo-ya! Take that, 6th graders! LOL. The poems were e.e. cummings’ “Anyone Lives in a Pretty How Town” and Louis Simpson’s “My Father in the Night Commanding No.” I still love both poems.

3. I read poetry because…. I like to think. I like to be entertained. I like to consider other points of view. I like hearing voices.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …….Louise Gluck’s “Circe” and “Siren.” Eliot’s Prufrock. HD’s Fragment 68.

5. I write poetry, but… I love television, baby! That’s right. None of that, “I threw out my television so I could meditate on nature a la Walden Pond” crap for me!

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature…..It’s condensed, exciting, exhilarating. The closest thing to junior high slow-dancing excitement you’ll find in book form.

7. I find poetry…… In Art and Artifacts. In People rather than Place. Not many poems about sunsets, but a lot of poems inspired by paintings, video installations, animé.

8. The last time I heard poetry…. Was on the radio. And the time before that was on a stage in Poulsbo, Washington.

9. I think poetry is like…A lot of things. Licking the candy wrapper. Kissing a stranger. Randomly walking into movies in a theater. Playing the “telephone” game.

Sorry about the lack of blog entries. Been sick again. Trying hard to get well in time for Christmas and the last residency.
On the plus side, being inside and sick helped me catch up on my Heroes episode re-watching. (Can’t wait for Monday’s new episode! The dialogue isn’t that well written, but the plot twists are clever and the overall pacing has been rewarding. Plus, the character Hiro has a blog where he mentioned Miyazaki. Geek out!) And I’ve been enjoying everyone else’s blogs – especially Miss Cornshake and her descriptions of Macdowell-land. Sounds dreamy.
Tempted to start decorating for Christmas tonight. I know it’s early…

Snowtruckless in Seattle
It’s the rainiest November on record here in Seattle. Last night around 4:45 I heard a weird sound against the window – it was ice and sleet hitting the glass. I called husband G to leave work early. An hour later we had two inches of snow, and then three…we decided to try to go to the grocery store, which was a huge mistake, because all the streets were like parking lots. On the news when we got home, we saw that the neighborhood we lived in when we first moved here, Issaquah, was unavailable – literally, you could not get there from here – people spent seven hours on the highway in unmoving traffic, cars and trucks littered the sides of the rode. Downtown was just as bad. Today, for the first time in the seven years I’ve lived here, Microsoft closed its campus. The roads are nothing but ice. Luckily G and I grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by ice and snow. But here, there aren’t enough salt trucks, no one knows how to drive in this weather, since it never does this, so G is staying home (Snow day!) and I will have to cancel my errands (Christmas shopping!) around town. Thank goodness for the internet!
In the Mail
Yesterday I received the Winter 2006 issue of Rattle, which has a lovely one-page review of Becoming the Villainess. Thanks, Rattle and N.K. Moni! Also, Tom from Steel Toe Books wrote to let me know that yet another teacher has adopted my book for a class! Thanks, again!
I watch TV like a boy?
I just realized recently that all of the marketing/commercials/ads I consume are for males 18-30. I am so strongly in their demographic in the shows that I watch, the music I listen to, and movies I go to, even the web sites I visit, that when I rented an art-house flick the other day I was shocked to see advertisements beyong “Girls Gone Wild,” the latest shoot-em-up XBox Game, and “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Wrath of Taj” etc. I don’t know what this says about me, or about advertisers. Do they just not care about women 18-30, or think we all spend out days watching “Desperate Housewives” and reading Redbook and don’t actually buy or do anything ourselves? Or am I so outside my demographic in my reading, television, radio and motion picture activities? Have any of you girls out there noticed this too?
Musical Zeitgeist
I’ve been working on my second book about Japanese fairy tales and popular culture, including a poem called “Crane Wife” about a crane who transforms into a human and marries the man who saves it, and recently I read about a band who did a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock(TM) album called “Crane Wife” about the very same Japanese folk tale. The band is called The Decembrists. If only I was a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock band, I would have beat them to this! It’s a decent album, but the first track is the best. Isn’t that always the way?
Dustup at Foetry: Tupelo Press and form letters
The recent trouble a-brewing over at Foetry over the fact that the entrants to Tupelo’s Open Submission period received form letters about their manuscripts instead of personalized critiuqes makes me realize how thankful I am for the few editors who, when I was first sending out the MS of Becoming the Villainess, really responded to my manuscript, when I was a finalist or semifinalist or whatever, with specific comments about the work, about whatever poems they liked or what they thought worked. Even a one-page letter makes a huge difference, even a scribbled note in colored pencil at the bottom of a form letter, it took work on the part of the editor, and yes, proves that someone out there actually read your work.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
This year I’m thankful. I was much less sick than the year before. I finished up graduate school (though officially, I won’t be graduated til January 15, I still feel that wee-hoo! feelign of being DONE!) My first book of poetry was published. (Some people didn’t hate it, and some nice folks even reviewed it! Joy.) I wrote another book of poetry, that now I have to start thinking about publishing. Thanks for my husband, who still loves to hear me read poetry after 405+ readings over twelve years. I have a wonderful set of poet friends locally, a great group of poet friends online (thanks interweb, you grand series of tubes 😉 and a loving family. Thankful for my new kitten, who kept waking me up last night by chasing his own tail in frantic circles at 1 AM, 6 AM. Thanks for the stack of books waiting for me to review, not one of which I’m not excited to read. I’m thankful today I will stay home and be quiet, making a little food for just the two of us and the cats. Thankful to everyone who reads this, everyone who encouraged me this year with kind notes and reminders. So it’s the rainest month in Seattle on record. So my student loans are coming due at the beginning of January. So? I have a lot to be thankful for.
I hope you do too! Happy day of Turkey and cranberries, damp leaves, football, loved ones, pumpkin pie with gingersnap crust. All right, I’ll stop before I sound like a holiday special…
Note: For those of you shopping for poetry lovers (or those you’d like to introduce to poetry) – here’s a customized list, prepared by Kelli A. and posted by Ivy A:
http://ivyai.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-thought-this-was-neat-idea-elegantly.html

Finally feeling better…at least mostly…and able to eat solid food again. Hooray!
Thanks to Oliver, I discovered KUOW ran a show with my poetry reading at Open Books yesterday. You can get to the podcast here…http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/podcast/beat20061120.mp3
The reading on Sunday went well, despite the sickliness – it was great hearing friend Ronda Broatch read, getting friend Jenifer Lawrence’s new book and just hanging out with the island-poet-crew. A lot of fun. I decided to read the more dark poems from Becoming the Villainess, rather than all the funny ones, and husband Glenn wants me to record them for this site. What can I say? He likes the dark side 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting a few days to read and rest and maybe even write some new poems. We’re not doing anything for Thanksgiving this year, just resting and trying to get all the way healthy. Maybe I’ll get some reviews written! I’ve got a stack of fantastic books to read. Despite the complaints year after year from the “poetry is dead” crowd, I find there is more good poetry that comes out than I have time to read.
Having a hard time holiday shopping? Think of Rebecca Loudon’s (newly Pulitzer-nominated) Radish King, or maybe a subscription to 32 Poems, 11th Muse, or American Poetry Journal. Of course, for those crazy comic-book or fairy tale fans on your list, there’s always this…

Still recovering from the seven-day-stomach-flu-of-death. No real food all week. And tomorrow afternoon I’m reading at the Jewel Box Theater in Poulsbo, WA – I hope I will be cogent and no one will even notice the dark circles under my eyes! I’m going to debut some new poems I haven’t read out loud before, all about my fox-wife (kitsune) characters.
I just recorded two poems for Pebble Lake Review, the poems are going to be in their Fall/Winter issue and they are going to post them to their Audio Project. Pebble Lake is such a cool magazine. I hadn’t read either of these poems out loud before; they’re nothing like my superhero/villainess poems, and they “play” differently somehow. It’ll be interesting to see what people think of them.
I think this week I have felt a little discouraged – two “no” responses from grants, two rejections, and an overall feeling of tiredness with the process of sending out poems or manuscripts. This may also have to do with the fever and the not-eating and constant nausea. I did, however, turn in my work for graduate school, the final assignments except for the class I have to teach and my reading and thesis defense at the January residency. Wow! I think MFA programs can kind of burn you out, for two years you try to produce and produce and read and absorb poetry. At the end, you’re sort of sick of your own work and sick of talking about poetry, a little bit. But again, maybe that’s just the flu talking.

Okay, I feel I should leave you with a more upbeat message. Next week, I promise. Til then, here’s the new kitten effectively blocking the act of printing out poems.

Fevery and nauseous today. After a jaunt over the water Saturday to see my dear island-bound friends (45 minute drive, 30 minute ferry ride, 20 minute drive) and back, through lashings of cold wet wind and driving rain, I started feeling – not surprisingly – achy and chilled. But it didn’t go away and I spent all yesterday in bed with nothing but crackers and ginger ale. Still not better, which makes me sad, because I really wanted to go see Rebecca Loudon do her reading tonight at Hugo House. She is one of my favorite local poets, and I haven’t seen her read in ages. Blah! Fie on this frail immune system of mine!
But aside from that, I am feeling very blessed. For one, the aforementioned island poet friends – a lovely group that has stuck by one another for several years, and continues to rah-rah one another on every success. For another, Kelli A. showed me her copy of 32 Poems (Now in Perfect Bound!) on the back of which Deb Ager kindly printed a cute little ad for my book, Becoming the Villainess. And Eduardo also gave a little shout-out for my book on his blog this weekend, which I was very cheered by even in my current nauseous state! Thanks E! These little things really add up, especially when I haven’t written a line of poetry in a couple of weeks, much less sent anything out, and I start feeling like I’m not really a writer, etc. The kindness of others can not be overvalued.
Now I’m going to go crawl back into bed.

OK, first of all, remember to vote! I did a mail-in vote, which doesn’t feel quite as satisfying as punching holes or whatever.

Back to the working world…
Just interviewed for – and I think accepted – a part-time job working with Expedia. It will be nice to have a steady paycheck again. I’ve been freelancing since I started school, but nothing steady, nothing that guarantees money in the bank. So this will be a good change, I think. Orientation on Friday! This is good, because not only is Christmas coming, but my student loans will start being due in January after graduation…and there’s this book publishing enterprise I want to start…

A call for poems…Though I have abdicated my role as editor of Silk Road recently, my good friend Lisa Galloway is still plugging away there, and is in desperate need of good poems of place! She’s requested that you send your poems to her at lisagalloway at gmail dot com. It’s a beautiful journal, so what are you waiting for?

I have been pleasantly surprised recently by reading material in new issues of the Writer’s Chronicle (put out by AWP) and American Poetry Review. In APR, a fascinating essay on the friendship of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, which had a wonderful gossipy tone that sounded genuine and invested, not creepy. In The Writer’s Chronicle, a long interview with multiple poet/editors, including the editors at Sarabande, Tupelo, Rain Taxi, and others. Other articles of interest in there too, like one on creative research.

Got to see some poet friends this weekend in the middle of a flood, a windstorm, and heavy rain. You know those times when good things happen to people you care about – a lot of them, all at once? That’s going on with me now. I think I must be good luck! Apocolyptic weather today again. Read and loved Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz – especially the prose poems telling of a young boy’s discovery of wings.

(Updated: As a reward for those of you who voted, or a punishment to those of you who did not, depending on your feelings about kittens:
Trick…or Treat?)

Hey, you say, when will Jeannine stop posting kitten pictures and start talking about poetry again? Well, today’s that day!
I got to hang out with Jennifer Thorton on a somewhat otherwise miserable rainy day, and we went to see a really fun reading by Rigoberto Gonzalez, Rick Barot, and Oliver de la Paz (my faves were a group of sonnets by Rigoberto titled “What the Dead Teach Us,” Rick’s poem “Magnolia” and Oliver’s persona poems from his book, “Names Above Houses.”) And I saw Dr. Peter there! I’m looking forward to reading Oliver’s book.
I’ve been loving The Daily Show’s Ohio episodes this week, as a former resident of the state. Tune in for skewering of “wholesome” flyover country, replete with Bob Evans references.
I’ve been trying to write a “finale” poem for the new book, sort of a breakup for the husband/wife characters, and everything I write sounds too much like Louise Gluck. I mean, I love her work, she does write some good breakup poems, but I don’t want to be all derivitive and whatnot. Sigh.
Voting coming up soon. Remember: Try to vote for the least stupid, or the least evil. Also, read those many poorly-written initiatives closely. This is where all those high-school mandated Government classes pay off!