A beautiful sunny day today in Seattle. I took a walk and stole lilacs from a parking lot hedge. I just decided to decline the opportunity to be editor-in-chief of my MFA program’s new journal. It was a really hard decision because if you know me that is exactly the kind of work I like to be doing and I already told the school I would do it back in January. But my health problems since the surgery have slowed me down way more than I expected. I am still going to the doctor twice a week into the foreseeable future, taking lots of medicine and supplements and letting people take blood over and over again (we thought you had this, but no – now we think you have this other thing, which requires a different specialist and a different lab. and et cetera). It’s been a discouraging process, and I like to be busy, like the kind of “normal” life – you know, where long car rides and stairs aren’t things that make you cancel an outing. Sorry to be so grumpy. I keep checking in with my doctor, angry I’m not better, angry that I had to have surgery at all, angry the surgery didn’t go right, angry angry angry. Fix it! I want to yell at her. Fix me!
So, thusly, I figured I am not in the best place to nurture, organize, bring to life a new magazine right now. I do want still want to start my own down the road. Right now I barely have the energy to write and send out work. Doing my homework is a huge effort right now. The one thing I am good at is reading. I’m reading everything – lit mags, books (just finished David Lehman’s newest, which I’m reviewing for Small Spiral Notebook, my friends poems (which always cheer me up.) I’m also surpringly adequate at the kind of writing I do for $$ – marketing and techie stuff, which apparently I could write now in my sleep. Thank goodness for that work, at least it makes me feel useful during this phase. I’m hoping by summer to have recovered enough to be able to do most of the things I was taking for granted back in January. Then grumpy Jeannine will make space for regular, sort-of-cheerful-and-upbeat Jeannine – ie more superhero, less supervillain.

You’re Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

It’s a poetry banner day – got my contributor copies of Rhino in the mail today, (which, by the way, looks great – nice job Rhino editors!) – I’m reading tonight with Kelli Agodon at Parkplace Books, and I just finished a new poem, sort of based on Lucie Brock-Broido’s “Domestic Mysticism.” So, pretty ideal. I am also considering rejoining – at least partially – the corporate world. Tomorrow I have an interview for a part-time position as an editor with an ad agency, which is the first permanent-y position I have been interested in since I quit Microsoft a few years back due to health problems (yup, the same problems I just had surgery for. Still working on the health thing. Apparently I’m not a one-shot, fix-it-up-and-get-on-with-it kind of girl.) So, I went out and bought a white interview jacket, and put together a portfolio notebook, updated my resume, and practiced shaking hands. It’s kind of a sweet position because it’s only twenty hours a week (perfect while I am in school) and most of the work can be done from home. It would be nice to feel I was contributing more, um, fully and consistently to our family finances. Freelance writing is good but doesn’t pay quite as regularly as one might want, and poetry, as you may have noticed, is really not so financially fulfilling unless you’re winning Genius Grants, which, sadly, I haven’t, so this would be a good thing. I think. Until those 10K a pop reading opportunities start rolling in, anyway. Any takers?

After a recent discussion on one of the poetry-related mailing lists about how long to wait for a response on a poem, I thought I should talk about a submission from August 1 of 2004, about which I had queried the journal multiple times with no response. This submission story just had a happy ending – the journal contacted me to say they wanted to publish one of the poems, and apologized for having multiple e-mail problems that prevented them from answering sooner. So, don’t necessarily write off those older submissions, especially if it’s a journal you like. And, two, don’t rely on e-mail to work – follow up once with snail mail and once with e-mail, if you like, that way you’ve got all the bases covered.

More AWP and Ilya…

I just have to say this first – Ilya’s workshop is the first time that any workshop leader has ever invited me to dance during a break. Real Waltz-type dancing. Dancing in Odessa…he wasn’t kidding! But seriously, Ilya was totally sweet and very very intense. We had a two hour workshop (some very very impressive poets among my workshop group whose names I can’t find right now) and then these individual conferences where he did a great job with line edits and suggestions and pep talking etc. I mean, twenty minutes and I forgot about the sixteen million hours of driving in the past 24 hours and four hours of sleep the night before. He made a point of telling us to be more ambitious, to write about bigger subjects, to try a series of poems, to write about “America” and I even made some notes towards future poems while he was talking, he was very inspiring that way. I don’t usually think about the difference between “big” and “small” subjects but he talked about that at length, and also about “cold” poetry like Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop and “warm” poetry. He did suggest I put an exclamation point in my poem, but I forgive him for that, because his other suggestions were spot on. Imagine me putting exclamation points in a poem around anything not having to do with lipstick. Or possibly, boots. Hey, I was raised in the Midwest – we don’t put exclamation points in our poems even if we’ve just been stabbed. Blogs, maybe, but never poems.
Speaking of that, everyone’s talking about how polite and friendly Vancouver was, but I have to say I encountered quite a few of the rudest people ever (not at the conference, more generally) and my friend (coincidentally, Midwestern) from my MFA program, who was staying a few blocks away from the conference, encountered a glass-shard stabbing in progress on her walk home one night. So, I don’t know, I still vote for Seattle over Vancouver – I’ve seen drug deals galore here, but never a glass-shard stabbing. Plus, as we drove home, I noticed how the rain cleared as we neared my little rented home, and sure enough, sunshine as we got in the driveway. I also want to issue an apology on behalf of the big-rainy-left-upper-corner to all who had trouble getting home (Shanna, Paul, etc.) – it sucks getting to and from anywhere in the Pacific Northwest via plane. I have had too many bad airport experiences here to even count, and I’ve tried Seattle’s airport, Portland, and Vancouver, numerous airlines, etc. What can I say? It’s like we have our own little Newark airport spirits out here.
Back to AWP…OK, first of all, I don’t think I mentioned in my last post how very attractive all the bloggers I met were in person. Everyone was way cuter than their pictures. And also interesting and friendly, the kind of people you’d invite over for pizza and xbox but could still talk to til 3 AM about “important subjects,” you know? Also I’d like to give the friendliest editor award (and there was a lot of competition) to Marjorie Manwaring from Switched On Gutenberg, who I met during an otherwise-kind-of-so-so panel on workshops and was just bowled over by how fun she was. I saw very little swanning or excessive schmoozing this year, overall. Last year’s AWP felt very intimidating and more business-like, but this one felt more genuinely good-will-full. Maybe it was all the Northwesterners. They are a gregarious and laid back group. The bookfair was wonderful, I spent a ton of time there and had a lot of fun just paging through books I had heard of but had never had a chance to get my hands on, even with my very own poetry bookstore in our backyard. I encouraged many publishers to send more of their books to Open Books in Seattle, it was surprising how few people knew about it, because hey – a poetry-only bookstore – everyone should know!
Another nice thing about the conference was how encouraging most of the publishers and editors were, as opposed to, say, yelling “Jeannine, quit sending us your damn work!” which is what I picture them saying when I lose a contest or get a rejections slip. Apparently, those who remembered my work wanted me to send again. It’s so funny, because usually one rejection slip is enough to scare me off a magazine for years – I’m like, yep, they hate me and my work, what’s the point of sending there again, etc. So, I had to remind myself to get over myself and not have such a fragile ego. Lots of poets out there, lots of them are really good, so persistence seems to be part of the deal. The other good thing I got out of talking to publishers was a sense of economically the problems with publishing poetry – the problem of debt, not selling enough copies of poetry books for them to be affordable to publish, the lack of support, the lack of audience, etc. One publisher suggested a “non-fiction hook,” like including music or non-fiction or artwork in books of poetry. I would like to become a poetry publisher someday and I’m trying to get a sense of what makes a publisher successful or not. I think active promotion of authors must help both the authors and the publishers – readings, book parties, ads, etc…Red Hen and Tupelo seem to be two publishers who are really good at that part – but there’s more – it’s sensing which book will connect with an audience and then how to get that book in front of said audience. Interestingly problematic. I am always dragging people who think they hate poetry to poetry readings that they end up loving and giving books of poetry to people who are genuinely surprised by how much they end up liking the books. You poets out there teaching freshman English 101 are part of it too, considering the problem of how to introduce people to poetry in an appealing way, and the high-school teachers, and the people that donate poetry subscriptions to libraries. Matthew Shindell is doing an innovative radio show in San Diego (click on his blog link at left and send him some poem recordings) and it will be interesting to see how those poems are received by the listeners. Will they be like, shut the poets up and play more music? Which poems might they connect to? On the drive home from Vancouver my family back in Cinci huddled around one computer listening to the show included me by calling me on my cell phone and holding their phone up to the computer while they made commentaries on the show. Some poets they liked, others they hated. It felt like the 1890s, somehow, listening to poetry on the radio, as a group, and my family is made up of robot scientists, corporate trainers, dojo-running graphic designers, and telecom network administrators, not the typical poetry audience, so it was good to hear their feedback.
Anyway, yup, getting audiences interested in poetry, how to do it, etc…any ideas? It is poetry month after all, if we can’t talk about it now, then when?

The first morning-after AWP – daylight savings time and I haven’t had my caffeine yet – so this first blog may be a bit incoherent – I am exhausted but pretty happy overall with the way AWP went this year. Went to some great readings, sold a couple of chapbooks, met a lot of the editors I pester on a regular basis – the best part was meeting all the bloggers – of course Kelli Agodon was up there, so we got to hang out, also got to chat with Victoria Chang, Paul Guest, Aimee Nez, Shanna Compton, Peter Pereira, Jennifer Thorton, and a lot of others that I’m probably forgetting – I think I saw C. Dale Young and Laurel Synder but I was too shy to walk up to either of them – also got to meet Kim Addonizio, thanks to Dorianne Laux. Got to say hi briefly to my previous advisor Marvin Bell, and my former professor from UC Don Bogen, which was great. Some fantastic readings – Pitt’s reading with Denise Duhamel, Alicia Ostriker, Virgil Suarez and Bob Hicok was up there, the Canadian and American Cross-Pollination reading with Peter Pereira, Susan Rich, Judith Barrington, Annie Finch, and Rachel Rose (and others I enjoyed but am forgetting), the Northwest Women reading (Lucia Perillo, Dorianne, Nance Van Winckel and Linda Bierds) were some of my favorites. Most surprisingly likable magazine editor was David Hamilton from Iowa Review, a charming grandfatherly type. Great quick conversation with a woman editor at University of Michigan Press, who said that “I’ll believe we’re done with feminism when I don’t see a bunch of male poets here talking about a female poet of equal stature in terms of body parts.” Wow, a cool person. Of course ran into friends from the low-res MFA program at Pacific University, and sat through many panels which I will detail at a later date. Went to the Wompo party and my school’s reception but didn’t party as much as I could or should have. Didn’t get to shop as much as I wanted, but am going home with truckload of free literary magazines, new books by Margaret Atwood, Kathleen Jesme, Alicia Ostriker, Denise Duhamel, Annie Finch (delightful in person) a Canadian Women’s Poetry Anthology, Shanna’s Gamers anthology, and lots of older books with new signatures.
I promise to blog in more detail when I get home. Have a class with Ilya Kaminsky in Seattle tomorrow and will be listening to Matthew Shindell’s radio show tonight.

Getting ready for our trip up to Vancouver for AWP this year – which is much less rushed and last-minute-throw-everything-in-a-suitcase-and-buy-tickets than last year. I am especially looking forward to browsing Canadian books of poetry – which are very hard to find in America for some reason, because of publishing rights or something – for instance, individual books of poetry by Margaret Atwood are scarce here, except for Morning in the Burned House – and picking up some copies of Canadian literary journals. And maybe some British and Canadian fashion magazines. I have to say British Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s and Queen make for great reading, have intelligent articles on books and even occasionally on poetry books and poets – a far cry from the dumbed-down American sister magazines. I also love checking out Canadian pharmacies for their cheap but excellent British makeup brands (Rimmel makes a lipstick I am addicted to that costs something like $2.50 American that I plan to buy at least half a dozen of) and cool but inexpensive spa products. In between shopping sprees, I plan to attend at least a couple AWP panels and talks, LOL – truthfully, sitting through those panels where people talk down to you or just repeat the same old literary clichés or assume you’re a nineteen-year-old just starting out can get a little old after a couple of hours. The best part of last year’s AWP was the chance to catch up with old friends and scoping out the book fair, talking to people you’ve written or read but never seen in person, plus the chance to hang out in the kickass Chicago Art Institute.
Anyway if you’re going to be there and you want to say hi, I’ll be working at the Mountain Pacific Writer’s MFA Program at Pacific University (whew, that’s a mouthful) booth on Saturday afternoon. Statistics say I’ll probably be wearing pink.

This weekend was the Redmond Poets in the Park Poetry festival, which is still a fairly small, low-key event. I got to hang with some poet friends, workshop with Wanda Coleman, who is a very interesting personality, and get formal poetry tips from ex-nun poet Madeleine de Frees. Sold some chapbooks and got to reconnect with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. This was my first big social event since the surgery, and kind of a warm-up for AWP. I was in some pain this weekend so hopefully over the next 8 days I will get all better. I’m taking my vitamins!
The funny thing about these events is that they almost always generate poems, and here’s why: when I zone out during the less, um, arresting poetry readings, I usually get hit with poems of my own. I wrote four this weekend, one of which I really like. So, yay for less than riveting readings.
The two foci (plural of focus?) of the weekend seemed to be formal poetry and performance poetry. Since what I write could not be characterized into either of those categories, (besides the odd syllabic) I felt a little out of the loop. It’s a problem, isn’t it, not fitting into any “school.” I’m not post-avant, I’m not new formal, I don’t slam…Perhaps this is why I’m having trouble getting my manuscript published. It’s just plain old fashioned regular lyric-narrative, persona-monologuing, mostly free-versey, pop-culture-and-mythic-archetype-referencing poetry. Anyone know a good outlet for that? 🙂 A friend at the conference recommended sending to U of Pittsburgh Press and Four Way Books. I’m open to any and all suggestions. PS Should I start my own school? PSS Even though I know AWP is coming up and I should be getting a jump-start on homework, I’m totally not. I’m just not feeling the essay feeling. Maybe I should eat some cheetos – junk food always helps. PPSS – My fans seem to be older men and lesbians, plus the odd goth girl and school teacher. Nothing against these groups, but I’m curious about why this is. Do you notice your fan base includes certain demographics? Do you think it’s something I’m wearing? Maybe I should ditch the bustiers and miniskirts. Just kidding, I don’t really wear those. Together, anyway.

Well, the latest blog chain thing is called the “The Stick” and supervillainess/new mother Reb L. has sent it to me.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (because one good futuristic dystopia deserves another)
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Does Darth Vader count? At 6, that was my first crush.
The last book you bought is: Carol Ann Duffy The World’s Wife
The last book you read: The Poet’s Companion by Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio
What are you currently reading? Tony Hoagland, What Narcissism Means to Me
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
The Bible, King James Version
Medical Botany, Walter Lewis and Memory Elvin-Lewis
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Julius Ceasar by Shakespeare
Possession, A.S. Byatt

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why? Because these three fabulous poets have yet to be whacked with “the stick.”
Kelli Agodon
Deborah Ager
Peter Pereira

My Life as a Pincushion – both literally and metaphorically.
I just got back from the big-city blood lab, (the only one in the state that does the tests I needed) where I was led to the hemophilia lab (!!) and then had a series of tests, including a blood draw with the biggest syringe I have ever seen (about the size of one of those orange juice glasses, maybe bigger) and some razor-blade cut tests that will scar up to look exactly like I’m some kind of blade-toting self-mutilation person. I should have at least asked to have them done in some kind of meaningful formation, like a star or my initials. I have been getting blood tests at the rate of once or twice a week since early January. I don’t even wince at the big needles now.
At the same time as my adventure through the series of doctor appointments over the last few weeks, I have been growing increasingly discouraged with the process of sending out manuscripts and receiving no news/no good news back. My mailbox has been distressingly empty of any kind of poetry news and I just don’t have the energy to send out my ms these days. I like the book and I think it deserves to be published (no arrogance there. Well, I blame my low platelet count for any ravings) but I just don’t feel like dealing with any more rejection. Besides the results of book contests, I am also waiting to hear on about 84 individual poems at this time.
Anyway, I know all writers go through times of discouragement and that health-wise I haven’t been on a joyride since the surgery and that probably adds to any regular garden-variety writerly depression. It’s easy for me to make money writing – I have more freelance work than I can handle so maybe I should stay away from poetry for a while, do the easy stuff, then get back to it when I am not seeing the world “through a glass darkly” as they say. Sorry to write such a downer post. I promise to be more upbeat next time. I guess I’m in more of a supervillain phase than a superhero phase (see post below re: supervillains.)