No rest for the wicked…

The reading at Open Books, Seattle’s poetry-only bookstore, was wonderful. The owners, John and Christine, provide the most gracious atmosphere one could wish for and John did outstanding introductions – truly moving – for Martha Silano and I. We were both a little nervous about being recorded for a possible local NPR show, but I think we did okay. The place was packed and the audience was terrific. Anyway, I can only say positive things about this experience, and if you get a chance to read at Open Books, you should. And now they have some signed copies of our books, if you stop in. Thanks to everyone who came out – I loved seeing your faces!
Husband G. and I are picking up the lovely and talented Kelli Russell Agodon on the way to the Skagit River Poetry Festival today, which starts Friday morning (I’ll be talking with high school kids all morning) and then readings that night and the full-on, everyone invited festival all Saturday, from sunup to sundown. I’m a little nervous about reading with Gerald Stern & co. on Saturday afternoon (4:15) but excited about meeting a poetry hero of mine, Anne Marie Macari, who reads right before that. Tess Gallagher, Billy Collins, Nance Van Winkel, Elizabeth Austin, and the aforementioned John W. Marshall from Open Books, along with a bunch of other famous poets, including friends like Peter Pereira and Kathleen Flenniken, will be there. After this I’m declaring a one-week poetry sabbatical. Did I mention that Silk Road is going to print next week and all of my MFA end-of-semester materials just came due? Oh, the fun, the madness!
Someone mentioned on Tuesday night how much healthier I am than just a year ago. What a difference a year makes! I’m hoping for the health thing to hold up a little longer…come on, immune system – and I’m grateful for all these fun opportunities. I just need a week of sleep to catch up. Then to school on the 10th on June!

Tuesday, May 16th, 7:30 PM
Jeannine Hall Gailey and Martha Silano read from their new books, Becoming the Villainess and Blue Positive!
Location: Open Books in Wallingford
I hope to see you there! And for margaritas afterwards!

In the everything happens at once newsbin:
Stanley Kunitz, who was 101, passed away.
I had a lovely late birthday party/workshop over on Bainbridge Island with my poet friends there. The cake had rasperry filling and pink roses, we wore leis, the weather was perfect – the yard was full of palm-sized squirrels and chipmunks.
One of my very favorite poets, Annette Spaulding-Convy, just won Floating Bridge Press’s Chapbook Contest. Her chapbook is going to be fantastic.
The lilacs are blooming everywhere.
I interviewed retiring Seattle Review editor Colleen McElroy for a feature Seattle Woman Magazine is going to do on her. Always a fun conversation.
I just got contributor copies of the new 2006 Evansville Review, with my poem “Becoming the Villainess” and poems by poets like XJ Kennedy and my former professor Andrew Hudgins, and the Spring/Summer 2006 Seattle Review, which had two poems from my book and a poem by blogger-and-friend Peter Pereira.
Of course, just to make life exciting, my dear husband G. had some bad clam chowder while I was with the poet friends so I was up most of the night last night bringing him ice chips and gingerale while he was pretty miserably getting read of said toxins. Yawnn…hope I get some sleep tonight…must be alert for the reading…after that, it’s on the Skagit River Poetry Festival – a busy week ahead…

It’s one of those poetry days…
I woke up from a series of disturbing dreams about hundreds of dead swans floating under water with a poem line in my head that I immediately wrote down:
“I could give my cocoon up to the grass”
which is one of those things that seem like genius when you first wake up and then, later, you’re left scratching your head.
I found out from my publisher that my book, Becoming the Villainess, has been adopted for an Intro to Creative Writing class at a University in Florida. I’m so excited! Although, sorry to those of you who will be forced to read my book for homework 😉 Still, it’s more exciting than reading Leaves of Grass for the twentieth time.
And I heard that the reading Martha Silano and I are doing at Open Books this upcoming Tuesday the 16th will be recorded for possible future radio airing on the local NPR station KUOW’s The Beat…exciting!
My little brother sent me an article from Wired talking about the reason young men are captivated by sexy powerful female role models in video games: How Lara Croft Steals Hearts. This article discusses the “Final Girl” theory that Jordan talked about a few days ago. None of this is a surprise – it’s been going on since Wonder Woman was created by a Jungian-obsessed Harvard professor who wanted a positive “anima” role model for boys and also, um, a lot of hot bondage action. Wikipedia has a pretty decent discussion of Wonder Woman’s origins, although they leave out any Jungian references.
Yesterday I wrote a poem that does not belong with any other new poems – instead, it’s a throwback to my old Grimms obsessions. I’m trying purposefully not to keep writing about the same things – hence my new penchant for writing about Japanese fairy tales and animé and trying to teach myself Kanji etc. Hmph. But I guess you should write the poems that want to be written and worry about sorting them later.

Report from a Billionaire’s living room exposed:
The art show that I went to last weekend, DoubleTake: From Monet to Lichtenstein, at the Experience Music Project in Seattle (the Gehry building beneath the Space Needle, which houses all of Paul Allen’s projects, including the Science Fiction museum and the EMP music museum – and now part of his personal art collection) was a little unsettling for me. First, they take you into a small, roped-off room, and make you watch a film defining things like “composition” and “color” narrated by David Hyde Pierce. After two minutes I ducked under the rope, frantic to escape, trying to find my way to the actual art. I hate anything that feels like a lecture about art – I went to my year of Art History, dammit! – I want to experience the art myself. Then you are given a talking handpiece which explains in “hip” language exactly what you are supposed to notice about the juxtaposed works. We, appropriately armed, are led into a single room, divided into three sections, which houses sometimes clever juxtapositions of one piece of art next to another, to highlight their differences and similarities, I assume. Sometimes this felt brilliant, other times condescending. On one wall where the juxtapositions worked, there were several paintings of the canals of Venice, one by Monet, one by Manet, one by Turner, and one by Caneletto. The Manet and Turner were both stunningly beautiful, and I’m not always a big Manet fan, but something about those intense blues, especially next to Turner’s gold light…of course what they wanted you to notice was that the images grew less defined as your eye went from painting to painting. The first wall you encounter was the huge promised Lichtenstein (of course, just having been to the incredible Lichtenstein exhibit at the Henry a month or so, I was less excited than I might have been) of “The Kiss,” a woman embracing a pilot with an airplane outline in the background – this was set next to Renoir’s “The Reader,” inviting comments about the positioning of the woman’s head, the background, etc. A wonderful Jasper Johns called “Numbers” – which was a brushed, beaten metal piece embedded with, you guessed it, random numbers, looked strangely appropriate next to a Monet of the Rouen cathedral. And one of the most amazing pieces of the collection was Jan Brueghel the Younger’s painting, “The Five Senses: Sight,” self-referential and delightfully detailed, a work I could have looked at for hours, next to Seurat’s “The Models” which has three women in varying states of undress seemingly in front of his masterpiece, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, visible as a background corner – again, winkingly self-referential, and amazing work. A Max Ernst painting of an alien landscape was set next to Van Gogh’s “Orchard with Flowering Peach Trees.”
The framing of all the works was odd to say the least (trying not to give the masterworks’ pieces more importance than modern pieces, some frames looked like ten dollar throwaways, others fancifully elaborate) and the lighting was downright bad, and the juxtapositions of contemporaty versus modernist versus classical work didn’t always serve their purposes. However, since the Seattle Art Museum is closed down right now for renovation and Seattleites don’t have chances to see this many Impressionists together anywhere else, even when the SAM is open, I’d say it’s worth the $8 visit.
On to more poetry-oriented news –
I was delighted to receive a contributor’s copy of Grimm Magazine, my very first appearance in a Canadian journal. This perfect-bound journal has an offbeat, artsy feel, and is named after editor Ed Grimm, in case you were wondering. Check out www.grimmagazine.com.
Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I haven’t been sending out much because I’ve got so much work that still hasn’t come back from last year. No rejections, no acceptances, no news whatsoever! What’s up with that?
I’m nervous about my May 16th reading at Open Books, my first ever official “Becoming the Villainess” reading in Seattle. Nervous nervous nervous!

I tell you, it’s not safe to shut off the e-mail for a second! Just cracked open the laptop for the first time all weekend to get this welcome birthday news from my kind publisher Tom Hunley at Steel Toe Books – that my poem “When Red Becomes the Wolf” is up at Verse Daily! Coincidentally, the other new Steel Toe Books author, Martha Silano, has a poem up today at Poetry Daily. Thanks to Tom for letting me know. Seriously, I’m going to have to send those Verse Daily people candy or something.
Thanks for all your birthday well-wishes, by the way – it was a splendidly lazy weekend, with art and duck and many other good things, playing tourist in downtown Seattle. It was super rainy yesterday but beautiful today, which just matches my much uplifed spirits. Nothing like a rest to make you want to write again!
PS If you can find the transcript of Stephen Colbert’s White House Correspondant’s Dinner for a laugh, read it.

Thereare all kinds of poetry events going on this weekend that I should be going to (Burning Word, Rebecca Loudon’s concert, three friends’ poetry readings…) but the husband is whisking me away for a birthday weekend of romantic entanglement (turning 33 on Sunday) so I’m going to shut off my brain and just try to relax and have some fun. But I will be thinking of you and your poetry activities and Rebecca’s beautiful concert.
Thanks to Jordan for the interesting take on Becoming the Villainess – he also discusses Gina Franco’s The Keepsake Storm (cool title!) His post made me go out and investigate Alice Fulton, who I’d heard of but never really read.

Wordstock and More…(Picture of Dr. Peter Pereira at Wordstock. None of me because I am moving around so much during the readings that they are all blurry.)
Finally got some sleep last night (after a week of insomnia) after getting back late late late from the very fun Portland, Oregon Wordstock festival. Got there on Friday to have dinner with friends before the festival, and then stayed through the end of the day Sunday (exhausting but worth it!) A mountain of good readings, book booths…got to chat with one of the editors of Burnside Review, where I got a copy of Laurel Snyder’s chapbook, Daphne and Jim (yay! Looking forward to reading it!) a copy of Scott Hightower’s second book, Martha Silano’s Blue Positive and a copy of Barrow Street Review to read, even though my review stack is so high I can no longer see the top of it. I saw my wonderful mentors Dorianne Laux and Debra Magpie Earling do a spectacular reading, Seattle friends Martha Silano and Kevin Craft (who I got to introduce), Yusef Komunyakaa (who I see at every opportunity b/c he is such a fantastic reader,) and I got to introduce my friends Joseph Millar and Lisa Galloway at the very last reading on Sunday. I got to sit in the VIP room (!!) with a lot of famous folks I was too shy to interact with (Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Hirsh, Gore Vidal..) and hobnob with some very charming Copper Canyon authors at the reception on Saturday – including the aforementioned Scott Hightower and Amy Uyematsu, both of whom were wonderful. I saw so many faculty members and students (and Rusty!) from my MFA program it was like a little reunion! I heard that Thisbe Neissen (who I really admire) was reading, but I never saw her, so it could have been a myth. Dave Eggers read but that reading was so packed you couldn’t get near enough to hear.
Our reading, on Saturday, which was me and Peter Pereira, was opposite Joyce Carol Oates, so I thought we wouldn’t have much of a crowd, but I was overwhelmed by the number of encouraging faces in the audience, including old friends from Pacific U and just a good mix overall. Peter is not just a great poet but he radiates goodness like a little halo – of course his reading was fabulous, and he read first, from his book Saying the World and his new to-be-published-by-Copper-Canyon manuscript, which made the audience so happy the tolerated me quite cheerfully 😉 I did think I might even have heard a little woo-hooing from a girl in the back when I read my Buffy poem, but that could have been my imagination. We had a minor worry until my husband Glenn with help from Copper Canyon’s Joseph Bednarik graciously help us set up our books to sell after the reading (they were supposed to be on a table, but of course no books were there, etc…) so even the mini book signing went off without much of a hitch. My first ever book signing for Becoming the Villainess! It’s official now that this book actually exists. People have seen it. Happy happy!
In other news…when worlds collide – I was checking in on my site for animé news, http://www.aintitcool.com/, where they reviewed the show Can’t Get a Date – and they loved Jim Behrle! It does seem, then, that geeks love poets…
Must unpack and catch up on errands…more later…

Congratulations to Jessica Goodfellow, the winner of this year’s Concrete Wolf chapbook contest, which I had the pleasure of judging. Jessica’s poetry is fiercely intelligent, on the experimental side, and displays her knowledge of math. My blurb will be better than that, I promise. Read more here: http://concretewolf.com/2005%20Chapbook%20winners%20list.htm. Their chapbooks are beautiful – take a look at Alison Pelegrin’s Squeezers for proof.
The perfect post-Easter meditation…comparing the Easter bunny and Totoro…Has anyone mentioned how Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro echoes the spiritual hunger and loneliness in Psalm 73? And John 14? The heartbreaking depiction of desire for a comforting God/spirit in the face of disaster…Pretty sneaky how Miyazaki wraps it all up in a round, bouncing, fuzzy-cat-owl creature. This is a theme I can’t get out of my head, especially as I’m still obsessed with Hayao Kawai’s “The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan,” which compares the Shinto and Taoist impulses and Japanese archetypes to Western mythological archetypes. This guy is a brilliant religion scholar who wrote a whole book devoted to interpreting fairy tale imagery. I wish I could find him and buy him a coffee! You know how you feel sometimes when you find a book that wonderful?
I think I’m finished with my Louise Gluck’s Averno review for Cincinnati Review. It’s about 2200 words, which is pretty long for a review, but it takes into account the trajectory of her work over time, how this book compares to others, etc. A weight off my mind. Now, onto fifteen other projects! Including finishing up submissions at Silk Road.
I hope those of you in the Portland, Oregon vicinity will stop by to see fellow blogger Peter Pereira (a big time poetry star, what with his winning that Copper Canyon book prize, etc.) and I read at 3 PM on Saturday at the literary Wordstock festival, in the Oregon Convention Center. We will be signing books afterwards, is my understanding. Hey, you should really hear Peter read – he’s a great reader! As for me, I promise to try not to be too boring. I think I’m going to read the funny stuff – keep it light for the crowds, right? Sometimes I get into dramatic mode but I’m not feeling that right now. Also I might read some of my new animé/Japanese fairy tale poems.
Still sickly (struggling to get over tonsillitis before this weekend…) so think good thoughts for me 🙂 Note to self: Next time, schedule book release for a healthy time. Not cold and flu season: note that flu season just peaked in Seattle in the first week of April.

Happy Easter Weekend, to those of you who celebrate it – and those who don’t, check out the wacky Easter candy anyway. I mean, shiny marshmallow chicks? Who doesn’t love that?
Sorry I have been away this week. I’ve been fighting off a cold and trying to get a backlog of work done. Thanks to all of you who have bought my new book, and you well-wishers, and those who sent me e-mail – many thanks! Remember to contact me if you want to do a book swap and if you want a review copy, to e-mail editor@steeltoebooks.com. I’ve already emptied one box of books and I’m starting on the second. Have I mentioned frosty chocolate milkshakes for everyone? Or pink-frosted cupcakes. We’ve got to celebrate the good! The news is so depressing lately I just want to shield my eyes from the various news sources. It would be so not smart to enter into a war with Iran. There’s a large number of young progressive Iranians (many of whom are pro-democracy, pro-Western, whatever – at least they are right now…) who are not our enemies. It’s just the people at the top who are the problem (sound familiar?) I just hope the folks at the top of our government remember that. If we go in with military force then how can we hope to “win the hearts and minds” of Iran’s people? And I’m not saying there aren’t problems in Iran – in, of all places, the May issue of Oprah Magazine, which is not usually where I get my international news – there’s a profile of a heroic Iranian woman lawyer trying to raise the legal age limit for marriage for girls (it used to be nine – it’s now twelve) and publicly defend the families whose little girls have been raped and murdered, only to be charged money when the rapists go to jail. True! Under the current law regime in Iran. Fairly horrible stuff. But if you nuke Iran, you’re going to be killing heroes like her indiscriminately with the jerkwads. Fact.
An interesting and intelligent debate was spawned after Publisher’s Weekly ran an article about online poetry journals and blogs and the article failed to mention a single woman. I checked my blog roll, which is almost exactly fifty percent women and fifty percent men, and I think that’s typical of the online breakdown in gender, so I don’t understand how women got completely ignored. Interesting takes on it on Kristy Bowen’s blog and Anne Boyer’s, as well as a bunch of others. On the plus side, I’m glad someone at Publisher’s Weekly talked about poetry blogging and such, since it’s been a thing since well, I don’t know, 2003? Hmm, does that mean poetry blogging is officially over since it’s been recognized by a major media outlet? Soon everything will be co-opted by Old Navy or something. Coming soon: Poems about Fleece!
(Also, a note: if your book is classified as “feminist theory” rather than “poetry” – um, what does this mean? Have I secretly been writing theory instead of poetry and just been unaware of it? So, if you’re looking for the book in a regular bookstore, it’s under “feminist studies” or something like that. Bizarrely. Well, it could just as easily have ended up in the comic-book section, I guess, so I shouldn’t complain.)
The funniest (and saddest) Jim Behrle cartoon ever: But you thought Jim was the only poet-cartoonist on the net? Check out Margaret Atwood’s cartoons at http://www.owtoad.com/comics.html. Also see her non-cartoon – the Rocky Road to Paper Heaven publishing “tips/sermon.”

Part I.
My book, Becoming the Villainess, is finally out! Time to sing the book song, book book book…
You can purchase a signed copy from me here
or you can get it from Steel Toe Books here
or from Amazon
or from B&N
or you can order it from Open Books, the poetry-only bookstore in Seattle…
Buy it! Tell your friends to buy it! Then buy it some more! 🙂

Part II.
Okay, dragged myself to another reading (despite the fact that I’ve been fighting off some kind of killer virus that requires me to sleep 14 hours a day) – this time Mary Ruefle, Tyehimba Jess (author of Leadbelly) and Peter Gizzi. Tyehimba was a great performer, and his persona poems about the musician and songwriter Leadbelly, especially those in the voice of his guitar, very accomplished. Mary was direct and unembellished in her reading style, and read new work, as yet unpublished, that was both wittier and packed more emotion that any of her previous work I’ve read. Ruefle quote: “Writing is a type of listening…when I was younger I thought it was about what I had to say, now I know it is about listening. “
In other news, I finished the hideous and greatly feared essay of the so-called “essay semester.” So now I can concentrate on “real” work…
For Miyazaki fans – Cartoon Network is showing “My Neighbor Totoro” this Thursday in prime time – 7:30 PM West Coast time. Park yourselves and any impressionable young children in front of the tv, and prepare to see a children’s movie done the way all children’s movies should be – with heart, imagination, whimsy, and spiritual depth.