A little slug of good news in the transom today…I know this is old hat for a lot of you, but I just got my first-ever Pushcart nomination, from American Poetry Journal for “Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon.” Yippee!

I’ve been lucky – in the latest slug of November-y, drizzling cold rainy days, which can suck the life out of you and make you wonder why you moved the Northwest, I got to see a friend (Kelli Russell Agodon) give one of her best readings ever at the cozy Ravenna Third Place Books venue, and then yesterday got to have a lovely lunch of crepes (mine: toffee-caramel-apple) and coffee with another friend and very talented poet, Annette. I mean, if you have to fight off the gloom of winter, that’s the way to do it.
Now I’ve started reading, appropriately enough for a time of year when it’s dark at 4 PM (if you’re lucky enough to have some sun to start with) Lucille Clifton’s Book of Light. I’ve read through Clifton’s collected/selected books before, but this book really showcases the strength of Clifton’s compact, simple but powerful and direct vocabulary and phrasing. I’m loving the poems about Leda, Cain, and Superman.
Two rejections today with long nice notes, but still – feeling a bit bruised. Been writing some new poems – maybe for the second book – in a new vein, something a little different. Even a prose poem, what’s that line from “Why I am not a Painter” “It is even in prose, now I am a real poet!”

I have an embarrassment of riches of blogger poet chapbooks – Ivy Alvarez’s charming ten-poem collection What’s Wrong, kind of a suite of broken love poems, and Alison Pelegrin’s gritty, bittersweet, street-wise Squeezers. I highly recommend both – I can honestly say I got more out of these collections than the last ten literary magazines I have read. This on top of Miss Frischkorn’s chapbook of last week, which I would read again and again just for the mermaid poems (which I understand are also in the new issue of Margie?)
I’ve been missing my little brother lately. He lives 3000 miles away and hates talking on the phone, so. He was always a weird kid, in his teenage years he would listen to a mix tape of Toole and Beethoven, neither of which I would have chosen to listen to (sorry Rebecca!) but I gained an appreciation and affection for both because of him. For his vast collection of old X-Men comics, his superior knowledge of the coolest video games, his uncanny knack for remembering details about the old obscure early eighties cartoons and shows we used to watch together (Fraggle Rock? Danger Mouse? Warriors of the Wind?) For Christmas a couple of years ago I received a toy from him that was my favorite toy when I was about eight and he was five. Someone stole this little object from me (called a Nyamy kitten, produced for about nine months in 1980) when I was on a girl scout camping trip, and I cried and cried for literally weeks about losing this toy, the only thing I had asked for at Christmastime that year – of course by the time it was stolen the toy was no longer on shelves, something to do with the flammable metal filings the toy was stuffed with. Well, now my Nyamy kitten is back, flammable innards and all, thanks to my little brother. What kind of person remembers a thing like that twenty years later?
Now that I’m healthier I’m getting a chance to socialize more – I’m going to like thirty poetry-related things in the next three days, it seems like. It’s nice to get to interact with poet-people again, makes me feel like less of an alien. I’ve sent off a bunch of queries to different magazines since I have the energy to write again, about travel and food and technology, respectively. It’s amazing how much more productive I am! Hrmph – I think I had forgotten “normal, un-sick me” has a rabid do-something energy. I actually dusted my house. E-mailed old friends to see what’s up. Rearranged photos, cleaned up paperwork, paid bills. Now if I could only channel that into writing some poems…

Oh, and I now have a cool new form so you can sign up for news about my book (and, maybe later, readings associated with said book…) – check it out if you’re interested – https://webbish6.com/poetry/contactform.htm

The discussion here at K. Silem Mohammad’s blog, http://limetree.ksilem.com/ (Dead Kitten Poetics) reminds me of a quote from an old beloved show of mine that used to be on MTV, Daria, from the episode “Quinn the Brain:”
“Her writing is BAD. Don’t people know the difference between GOOD and BAD?”

Did you ever feel you knew in your gut a piece of writing was good or bad, but couldn’t explain why? Is this due to a shortcoming in our poetics, the individual’s taste, or socialized constructs of taste? Something beyond definable style or subject matter, some ineffable “it.” Like when you find someone irresistably attractive, but you can’t say why, or why you love asparagus.

(For a fascinating discussion of the false dichotomies of avant-garde versus school o’ quietude, see here, http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/field-charts-venn-diagrams-and-dead.html.)
So many interesting blog posts, so little time. Did I mention I spent today getting three fillings, so these interesting posts are distracting me from the fact that I look like one of those old-fashioned cartoon people with puffy jaws and ice bags tied to their faces.

(Under the heading of, Poets Who Actually Deserve Big Prizes or, do I know how to pick ’em or what?)
Big congrats to two winners of the $40,000 Whiting Award, Ilya Kaminsky and Dana Levin. Sometime in the last year I loved each of their books to death (Ilya’s Dancing in Odessa and Dana Levin’s Wedding Day) and wrote glowing reviews of them – my review of Ilya’s book review is in The Pedestal and my review of Dana’s book is in the new issue of 88.) Sometimes it is work to try to find something positive to say about books of poetry, but both these reviews were based on real, punch-in-the-gut admiration.
Seriously, if I was going to pick two upcoming poets who deserved a prize like this, based on two books released in the last twelve months or so, it would be these two poets. So hooray.
I am finishing Zadie Smith’s On Beauty (a fabo sendup of politics in academia, race, and American culture – and a real pleasure to read, funny and acid sharp – very anti-poetry, I think, and among the main characters is a thinly veiled parody composite Jorie Graham/Louise Gluck character) and Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle. Sometimes I need a little fiction to help me write better poems. I loved the fierce feminism in the fragmented poems of Kristy Bowen’s chapbook Errata, which you can still get for free until Nov 1 – see her blog, here.
In the last two months, sales of Female Comic Book Superheroes have raised a little over $40 for Katrina flood victim relief. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy! I’m sending the funds on Halloween.

And, in case you were wondering, here is a link to the final version of my book cover – many thanks to everyone who responded about the previous draft – now I just have to wait to see it on real live paper!

On my way out of town for a few days of r&r…but check out Suzanne’s blog for some good news and great cover art (PS Buy her chapbook!)

OK, drum roll…
Here’s a link to the draft of the cover art for Becoming the Villainess from Steel Toe Books, on bookshelves everywhere (hopefully) next year…
https://webbish6.com/poetry/images/villainess_full.jpg
The text and author pic on the back are all just placeholders, complete with typos etc. Let me know what you think! The art was created by the multi-talented Michaela Eaves.
And, where is Jim Behrle when you need him? I’m trying to choose a pic for the back and I need him to tell me “what the hell is up with my author photo?”

An interesting article on do-it-yourself book tours on PW.com that could be useful to those planning them – http://www.pw.org/mag/0511/cook.htm. It’s told from the perspective of a fiction writer, though I’m sure much of it applies to poets too.
Interesting especially because I’m planning one right now, as we speak, for next year’s launch of Becoming the Villainess. Readings in Seattle and Portland, of course, and Kentucky (where Steel Toe is located) and Cincinnati (my family lives there) and maybe down to California – San Fran and LA – if I can find some people who want me there 🙂 I’m hoping to do some of these readings with the lovely and talented Martha Silano, who happens to have a book (Blue Positive) coming out from the same press at the same time. Let me know if you want me or us to stop in your town. The other places I’m considering are Richmond/DC, as I lived there for about a year and a half and loved it, Knoxville (my childhood hometown, and one of my brothers lives there,) Boston (because I love Boston) and NYC (same reasoning.) But I worry about expenses (esp. on my freelance writing budget…) and how not to get sick with all the travel. Any tips from those who have been down this path? Please leave comments with wisdom!
Getting close to having the draft of the cover art ready to post…
Now, if I can just stop fiddling with my MS and get the third blurb…I can stop stressing out. Otherwise, still sick, now I got my husband sick too, so we are planning to eat takeout until we are better. Pizza and hot and sour soup with spring rolls are health food, right?

Another Day, Another Doctor…

There I was, getting all better, giving poetry talks and going for power walks in the sunshiney parks and whatnot, then blam! Hit over the head with a new hydra head of this chest/sinus thing I’ve been dealing with since late August…now I officially have tonsillitis and an ear infection on top of the sinus/bronchitis and have been given a double dose of one of the only antibiotics I’m not allergic to. I tell you, some days I just get so frustrated with my body. I’m just like, hey, stay well already! Anyway, mostly this is just annoying, not life-threatening, but this is also the first time in ten years I’ve had to start taking daily inhaled steroids for my asthma, and not just as an emergency thing. Asthma is a tricky beast too – for years I’ve been fine just on Claritin and Singulaire, then suddenly, two dozen attacks in two weeks.

Anywho, for those of you wondering about the whole POETRY thing, well, the group I met with in Auburn, WA was very endearing – the group was mostly men, mostly older than me – hey, just like when I was working at Microsoft/IBM/At&T – so I was right at home. They were incredibly supportive, generous folks, and I really enjoyed hearing their work. Also, as an audience, they were very supportive of the reading, bought chapbooks, etc. I gave a short talk on persona poems, defining what they were and talking about why I thought they were a useful exercise for a beginning poet – one, they force you to exercise a little empathy, and two, they get you out of your own head. Then I read a bunch of persona poems from the upcoming book – half from sympathetic characters, and half from unsympathetic, and we talked about why writing from the perspective of someone we might initially judge as a “bad” person might be good for us. One guy, in response, read an incredibly powerful persona poem about an angry soldier. The host for the evening, who brought me to the group, was Lana Ayers, is both a wonderful poet and a very gracious person to be around. I was sad I didn’t get to meet Paul (sorry Tom!) but excited to see fellow blogger Lisa Jarnot was going to be reading in the SPLAB series. I hope I’m well enough to go!
I’m also STILL making changes to Becoming the Villainess, despite being so close to the cut-off date…I’m also stressing that I haven’t thanked all the people who need to be thanked…anyway, if I miss you in this one, let me know and I’ll be sure to get you in the next 🙂 assuming there will be a next, of course. I wanted to make the ending a little less depressing, so I added back in a poem I had pulled from the first MS and put into the second (as yet untitled) MS, and mixed up the order a bit. I also threw in a new poem I just wrote. I HAVE to stop writing poems for this MS. Bad me! Tell me I’m not the only person who has done this!
I was also interested in the conversation at Laurel and Mayhew’s blogs about how to determine if one belongs to the school of quietude or to the post-avant. It’s not so easy, I think, for we up-and-comers I think to wholly subscribe to one or the other. It seems kind of quaint. I like an awful lot of “traditional” verse – but I’m bored by a lot of poets described as SOQ too. I like a lot of people out there on the edge of weird experimental verse too – but some of them just seem shallow and show-offy, which can be equally boring. (No one reading this, of course 😉
I don’t think what I write could be described as SOQ – not enough nature? not enough epiphany? – but I don’t think I could classify myself as post-avant either, too much regular syntax, too many narrative poems mixed in with the lyric. I mean, theory wise I would say I lean towards the deconstructionalist, particularly feminist-type examinations of the constructs surrounding the expectations for women etc. But how much of that gets into my writing? Talking about new sincerity too – I have to say I’m attracted to verse that has something to say, and says it with emotional power. But is that what I write? Maybe sometimes. Am I sincere? Anywho, I do like reading in blogs and lit mags about different schools, but I sometimes feel they are more theoretical than applicable, meant to slice poets apart from each other – you can’t like that person, they’re not in your “school.”
So a few of my new favorite poets are folks like Dana Levin, Ilya Kaminsky, Rachel Zucker, Brigit Pegeen Kelly (okay I cheated, she’s really not that new.) What do these writers share in common? My fave lit mags tend to be those described as “eclectic.” Maybe I’m just an eclectic kind of gal.

Hey everyone…I’m doing a short talk tomorrow on persona poems and would love to hear what your favorite persona poem is…

SPLAB: Auburn Transit Center, 110 Second St. S.W., No. 100. “Living Room” hours are 7-9 p.m. * The “Living Room” writers critique circle will be hosted by Lana Hechtman Ayers with guest Jeannine Hall Gailey Oct. 11. * “Living Room” will be hosted by David Rizzi Oct. 18. Visit http://www.splab.org.