I’ve been sickly (this darn sinus infection is killing me!) but somewhat productive this week:
–part-time jobs applied for: three (one teaching, one technical, one travel writing)
–grant applications: one
–festival applications: one
–poems written: one
–acceptances (thank you, Columbia Poetry Review): one
–pounds of junk mail thrown out: six hundred
–chapbooks received in mail (Slice of Cherry Pie): one. By the way, Ivy, Shanna, and all involved: A kick-ass piece of work. I loved every poem, I devoured the whole thing at once, I want everyone to read this, whether or not they are Twin Peaks Fans. PS You should be selling this at the Snoqualamie Lodge too! (where they shot some of Twin Peaks.) One of my favorites is the prose poem by Jared Leising. Love love love!
–horrible MLA-formatted two-year bibliographies finished: one
–kitten-related injuries: three
–kitten pictures taken: too many (and here’s another, this time in demon kitten mode chewing on Glenn)

I know I’m very far behind in my review work (I have several books including Laurel Snyder and Kate Greenstreet’s stacked in my “to review” pile. Patience! On 11/20, my thesis will be done, and I will have time again.

If it’s Monday, you must be in Seattle…

Back from picturesque Bellingham (I forgot my camera, but everything was like the perfect autumn small town – from snowy Mt. Baker, the turning maples, the dense fog over the water at night.) Had great fun reading with Martha at Village Books, and got to meet some great folks – including fellow blogging-poet Oliver de la Paz. Definitely have to go back to Bellingham on a purely recreational trip sometime soon.

Finally recovering from month-long chest and head thing – travel does, apparently, take a toll on the health front – and looking forward to some rest to work on my thesis, bibliography, etc (all due 11/20.)

And, picked up an unexpected extra on this reading trip – we passed pumpkin farms, sweet corn stands, pick your own apple farms…but couldn’t resist a woman with kittens. We’re now the proud owners of a little semi-Ragdoll-esque little male kitten named Shakespeare. He kept us up all night biting out hands, meowing loudly, and terrorizing our nice blonde adult female cat, Bastett. Here’s a pic – where he’s all tired out from shenanigans….

And, on the poetry front, a new review up on Fickle Muses, a new journal of myth and poetry, of Becoming the Villainess: here it is at…http://www.ficklemuses.com/nonfiction/becomingthevillainess.html

Even More Exciting Things Going On!

I know ya’ll are sick of me talking about all this stuff I’m doing this month. Well, it’s almost over…give me a few more days…

Wednesday, Octboer 18 – My former professor (and Wesleyan author) Don Bogen will be reading at Open Books at 7:30. Be there or square or something!

Thursday, October 19 – My good friends Kathleen Flenniken and Susan Rich are reading from their respective new books at Soul Food Books in Redmond. Again, be there, be square, etc.

Saturday, October 21 – I’m reading with fellow Steel Toe author Martha Silano at Village Books in Bellingham at 7:30 PM. If you live near Bellingham, come say hi! It’s my first time in town and I’m dying to know all about it.

And apres ca: a month of rest. Except for school and work. But no poetry readings. Til November 19.

Ooh, and Jessa from Bookslut has confirmed that I’m reading with them in Chicago in April. I’m excited!

Reading report from Portland…

Really nice crowd at Portland State (free wine, cheese, fruit, cookies…man, these Portland poets really know how to feed an audience – we should have this stuff at readings in Seattle!) Although I believe the mike was possessed – it had a super-pop-thing going and it actually attacked Laurel physically while she was reading. She did a great job with her very affecting work from Daphne and Jim and it was really fun to read with her. I was very happy to see some friends who teach at PSU and some of my fellow Pacific students. So, a fun trip, if somewhat too short – because we had to come in late and leave early the next day. Hope to see you again soon, Portland 🙂

Checking my DVR, two shows that were pretty hilarious – The Colbert Report featured a light-sabre fight between Colbert and George Lucas on one night, and he appeared (and got kissed) by Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda in a very funny sketch on the other. King of the geeks, baby!

In other news, my review of Lesle Lewis’s second book, Landscapes I & II, is up at Three Candles, and I got a slammin’ contributor’s copy of the print version of Wicked Alice.

In still other news, I am very, very tired. I love doing poetry readings, but at the end of the night, I’m always ready to hibernate for a couple of days. Is this part of some strange half-introvert-extrovert personality flaw? Also, it is officially autumn – the leaves are turning (at least, here, on the sparse deciduous trees), the pumpkins are out, and all the volcanoes I saw on the way home (Mt. Hood,. Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier) were shiny in the clear October sunshine. Are volcanoes seasonal?

The tour goes on…

Back in Seattle long enough to catch my breath, throw all my clothes in the laundry, (catch up on a little blog reading and television – Heroes – X-Files meets X-Men?) and indulge in some of my husband’s great cooking (yesterday, grilled salmon and beet and orange salad, mmm) before we pack up tonight and race off to the next reading on Wednesday night in Portland, Oregon.
I’m looking forward to seeing Portland State University for the first time and seeing some Portland friends, as well as meeting Laurel Snyder…Thanks to Burnside Review and Portland State for making this happen! Here’s the listing from Burnside Review’s web site:

“We’re excited to announce that Burnside Review in conjunction with PSU’s Literary Arts Alliance will be bringing 2005 Chapbook Contest winner Laurel Snyder to Portland October 11th. She will be reading from her winning manuscript, Daphne and Jim. Jeannine Hall Gailey will also read from her new book Becoming the Villainess. The reading will take place at 7:30 on the PSU campus, Smith Center, Cascade Room 238. Admission is free.”

So, be there, if you can…I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

Post from the road:
Survived the readings in Kentucky and Ohio with no major incidents, I’m happy to report. I loved being a guest-teacher in publisher Tom Hunley’s WKU classes in contemporary poetry – the students were so articulate and interesting I would have loved just staying there chatting with them. The crowd at WKU was surprisingly big and enthusiastic – the faculty there were very welcoming – it was just an ideal trip. Tom and his wife Relaina hosted a party afterwards for me and the students and faculty – Relaina even made cookies decorated with red icing versions of my book cover and the blurbs (Michaela you would have been impressed)
Going back to University of Cincinnati was really disconcerting – the campus has been really improved since I was there – but my professors all looked younger than I remembered. How does that work? My college roommate – who I hadn’t seen in years – came to the reading, which was really cool, and I enjoyed catching up with old friends and meeting some of the new graduate students there.
Today my parents are having a book party for me so I’ll get to hang out with old friends and some new folks as well. Then tomorrow flying back to Seattle…and back to my normal life…

Here’s where I’ll be this week – if you’re around, come out and say hi!

Tuesday, October 3 – Bowling Green, Kentucky. Jeannine Hall Gailey is reading from her new book, Becoming the Villainess, at Western Kentucky University at 7 PM, Room 125 in Cherry Hall.
(PS – A short hour’s drive from Nashville, Tennessee!)

Friday, October 6, 2006 – Cincinnati, Ohio. 4 PM – Jeannine Hall Gailey reads from her new book, Becoming the Villainess, at the Elliston Poetry Room in Langsam Library at the University of Cincinnati

Also, there’s a little newspaper article about the readings:
http://news.communitypress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060927/NEWS01/609270677/1062/Loca
I’m not sure I said all those quotes – especially the last one – in exactly that way, but overall, I thought the writer did a very nice job.

Think good thoughts for me maintaining health – I’m on a couple of antibiotics right now, and struggling to get better from a mean chest/throat/eye infection, and air travel is always iffy for me anyway, I catch everything. Does this happen to anyone else before readings? It’s like your body knows…

Well, it’s no poetry bus, but I am going to be doing a bit of a book tour for the month of October…Wish me luck!
Here’s the schedule: On Saturday the 30th I leave for Cincinnati. I stay there a day or so, getting adjusted to East Coast time and saying hi to family before driving to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to speak with Tom C. Hunley’s classes and do a reading at Western Kentucky University on October the 3rd. After that, I turn around and make the five-hour drive back to Cincinnati, attend a Shakespeare play-in-the-park with the family, and then read at University of Cincinnati on Friday October 6th. On Saturday, my parents are throwing a little book-party shindig at their place in Cinci, which should be a good opportunity to see some old friends. I fly back to Seattle on Sunday, then on Wednesday the 11th, I sneak down to Portland to do a reading with the imitable Laurel Snyder, courtesy of the excellent Burnside Review guys, at Portland State University. Then, the 21st, I go up to Bellingham, WA, near the Canadian border, to do a reading at Village Books with Martha Silano, my fellow Steel Toe Books author. Anyone besides me exhausted yet? I don’t know how those Poetry Bus people do it, driving to a different city every day and reading. With no showers!
I’ve been a little under-the-weather, which is why I haven’t posted, plus I had to have a little adrenal tumor CATscanned, which isn’t too traumatic, but I’m supposed to get the results this week, dan dan dannn, which leaves one a little nervous, even though it’s probably nothing. I’m taking lots of vitamin C to prevent any colds on the trip, and was very happy to wake up today and hear the news that the TSA is going to allow liquids (such as lip balm and hand lotion, bottled water, etc.) on planes again. It was just too terrible to contemplate flying with no water bottle and no lip balm. I know, I’m spoiled. I almost contemplated taking a train (from here to Chicago, and then to Cinci) but it was too expensive. Plus I’ve submitted several packets of poems, a couple of book manuscripts, and trying to do all last-minute errands.
I’m also trying to research the history of female savior characters in Japanese mythology and anime. If you have any theories about this subject, or know of any place to read about them, please post them. Miyazai in particular builds these great myths of female heroines and links them to Japanese tradition through historical references and fairy tale structures. But I’m linking this to the legend of Queen Pimiko (or Himiko) who was one of the first documented rulers of the early tribes of Japan, and also the legend of the sun goddess. The more I study this stuff, the more interested I get. I’m currently addicted to my stack of out-of-print books from the library.
In other news, congratulate Paul Guest, who is the monthly feature at Verse Daily!

I have to start out this post with other people’s good news:

A certain robot scientist WON the Made in Express contest – http://www.madeinexpresscontest.com/
Congrats!

Kate Greenstreet’s first book of poetry is out! I want a chance to review it.

Went to Kathleen Flenniken’s launch of her first book of poetry, Famous – her reading at Open Books was great (crowded!) and the party afterwards was rockin. Thanks Kathleen!

I’m in a tizzy trying to finish up numerous projects before I leave for my eight-day Midwestern book tour on September 30th (well, just Kentucky and Ohio!) I have to send out my third packet – including an updated thesis MS – to Pattiann, send out a couple of applications for grants, readings, and festivals before their upcoming due dates, send out my second book MS to some open reading periods and contests, send out some poems (I’ve been running behind on submissions) and I just agreed to help run a reading series on the East side of Seattle and maybe start an anthology project and…and…and….
Too late. I got exhausted just thinking about it and now I’m just going to go shower. See what happens to my momentum?
Actually I’ve been spending all my spare moments researching, trying to get ahold of obscure Japanese fairy tale index references and out of print Miyazaki interviews. I have this idea that adding quotes to my book manuscript will help readers make sense of it – it’s a collection of poems about Japanese fairy tales, especially non-human wives and rescuing older sisters, about Japanese anime heroines, and, you know, a little about me in there too (I’m the boring part!) I had my brother’s former Japanese professor take a look at it, and her husband told me he was really proud of me for knowing a certain myth – he had done a book report on the subject in grade school in Japan– that he said even most contemporary Japanese people don’t know anymore. This means I’m almost definitely sending out stuff that normal readers/judges will have no clue about. Obscurity much? Oh, and the chances of some random reader knowing Japanese mythology AND having a working knowledge of Miyazaki movies? Probably low. Why do I get obsessed with these subjects? Why can’t I just write about my nice life, walking along and seeing a cow (or, as in my real life, some cute baby otters!) and communicating the wonder of life? Or how about some nice love poems which are not in the voice of some kind of fox-bird changeling? I think I would have a much better chance if I did that. Well, I have to close my eyes and pray for an eccentric publisher to discover my brilliance. (Hahahhaahahahaha – insert other maniacal laughter here.)

I’ve been practicing lately a Japanese form called the Haibun, which was practiced by the hallowed poet Basho. It’s a delicate balancing act of prose plus poetry – a paragraph followed by a related haiku or tanka. I’m taking a very loose approach, of course, but trying to follow some of the principles just the same. For some interesting reading on Haibun and how to teach it in the classroom, check this.
Between these and writing prose poems, I don’t know how I can call myself a poet at all. Soon I will forget how to make a line break. I seem to be obsessed with story, (I love stories, but not retelling them – I just want them as kind of a metal frame) but my poems are getting more and more surreal, characters that act within the realm of a narrative but seem to want to find a way out of it. Personal, confessional poetry? I’d much rather play on the monkey bars of another world. Not that I mind reading other people’s personal/confessional work. Of course, all poems reveal something intimate about the writer, their obsessions, subconscious associations, etc. Whether we want them to or not. Hmm. It’s quite possible some of that theory from my MA program go through after all – I think I might be a sort of Jungian Deconstructionist. If that’s not too out of date. Who knows what the kids are calling it today – those kids and their rock and roll music!
I’m afraid this second book is shaping up to be weird with a capital W. This means it will probably have a hard time winning any contests, or getting by any committees.
Speaking of which, if you were going to start a press and wanted to forgo the usual contest route – which is usually the means by the publisher (possibly/usually penniless) of raising the money to print the book, would you prefer – open submissions where you paid a fee, which would get you a copy of the selected book when it came out? Open submissions, with fee, with commentary on the work by the editor/publisher? Or would you guys rather just have the little publisher run the usual $25 contest, send a copy of the book when it’s out, and get the thrill of the “winning?” Tough questions.
I have put myself on the waiting list for a large PO Box. I am scouting out web domains. I’ve retired from the editorial staff of Silk Road to focus on “new projects…”