Greetings from the Solstice in Seattle, Disappointed with Rising Covid Numbers and Re-openings, Feeling Discouraged with PoetryWorld

Glenn and I at a lavender farm in Snoqualmie Falls

Greetings from the Solstice in Seattle

To cheer me up pre-root canal (which I am terrified about because of the threat of cornavirus – dentist’s offices are supposedly pretty high risk – and because dental work seems to make my MS symptoms flare), we took our first day trip since the lockdown in February on the first pretty day in June, up to Ollalie State Park and the lavender farm in Snoqualmie.

We saw a giant herd of elk (our first time seeing them ever in the Northwest) on the way up in North Bend. The lavender was still a little early but still beautiful. Weeks Falls was quiet, as was one of my favorite hiking spots by the Snoqualmie River. Ollalie State Park is always pretty sparsely attended, but it has my highest recommendation.

Being out in nature did take my mind off all the pandemic and other stress. The solstice in Seattle came in with the first whisper of sunshine, hardly the feeling of the longest day of the year. Here are a couple of shots from the trip:

 

Immature Rufous perched on coral bells

Disappointed with Rising Covid Numbers and Re-openings

Here in King County, where I live, we just hit stage 2 of the re-opening, though Washington State’s numbers, like a lot of the rest of country’s, are turning worse, not better. Yesterday night there was a block party in my neighborhood, older people and children, lots of beer and laughter, nobody with masks on, and I wondered if these people were stupid or suicidal or just oblivious. Do they forget there is still a plague on, one that has no good treatment, that we are still a year away from a vaccine at least, that it can cause permanent organ damage if it doesn’t kill you? At the wineries, drunk people cheek to cheek, no masks, stumbling along through the paths. I know this exact thing is happening in a larger scale all throughout America right now.

I feel so disappointed in people. For one, their refusal to face scientific facts. For two, their inconsideration towards people like me – vulnerable to disease because of immune problems, just “it’s okay for you to die, it’s not going to happen to me.” Selfish at best. Murderous at worst. Their boredom and refusal to acknowledge facts will lead to death and then, even more death. It’s tremendously depressing how predictable it is. I knew America didn’t value poetry. I’ve learned that it also doesn’t value science. Or the lives of me or people like me. It doesn’t value anything that isn’t easy and make it feel good. I feel less and less like an American, and more like an alien here, like I don’t belong here. Tell me, are you feeling this too?

Me with the Snoqualmie River and trees in my happy place

Feeling Discouraged with PoetryWorld

Along with my disillusionment with America, I’ve been equally feeling discouraged with the PoetryWorld, which I knew from a young age (well, from the time of my MA in my early twenties) was flawed and full of people who might take advantage of other people, but it still surprises me when it happens. There have been a lot of shifts in power in the PoetryWorld, and maybe something good will come from that.

And what can I say? I’ve been writing and submitting since I was nineteen, taking a dozen years to work in tech, getting too sick to continue working in tech, and turning back to my dream of being a writer. I had hoped at this point I’d have more to show – that I’d have had a little more success by now. That I wouldn’t still be sending out my manuscripts (with endless checks, endless months of waiting) to publishers, still knocking at the doors of bigger presses, still fighting for…more nothing? What am I doing with my life?  I am a fighter, but sometimes even I get tired. And today is one of those days. We try to be good literary citizens, volunteering at literary magazines, serving on boards, donating and writing endless book reviews and…what is the result? Not that you do it for a reward, but…have I been naive, trying to do things the right way, trying to be kind, trying to be scrupulous? Anyway, I know from social media that others are giving up and turning away from poetry right now, which I think is a shame, because now is the time we need poetry. I know I do. I turn to reading poems that moved me back when I was nineteen. I read new books full of passion and intelligence, and they give me hope. Plus, I can’t stop writing poems. I have the start of a third poetry manuscript of my hands now. I just need a publisher to believe in one of them. Those of you who are also discouraged – just remember, the world is turbulent now, turning on its axis, eclipses and planets in retrograde, there are plagues and protests and whispers of war and ruin. We just have to make it through. That is our job now – to survive, to be around to rebuild a better world, and a better PoetryWorld.

The 13th of Juneuary, Seattle is Probably More Peaceful Than You Think, Being Sick and Considering the Dismantling of Corrupt Systems

Rainbow from my bedroom window

The 13th of Juneuary

What a week! Seattle made national news with the peaceful protestors taking over a few blocks of Capitol Hill (and Fox falsified that national news, then had to retract it), I was supposed to get a root canal but couldn’t because I was running 100 degree fever and spent the rest of week sleeping and mostly sick in bed (and now have to get tested, yes, for coronavirus, before I have my tooth fixed) and I spent time considering the dismantling of corrupt systems. How was your week?

Did I mention it’s been cold and pouring rain and hail on us all week as well, which makes even the most rain-loving Seattleite a little cranky in, say, the second week of June?

Pileated Woodpecker grows in my planter

Seattle is Better Off Than You Think

You may or may not, if you live somewhere far away from Seattle, have been getting reports – mostly false – of chaos and crime and uproar in Seattle. But for the most part, we are all fine here. Hearing that Fox News doctored photos from Capital Hill’s protest zone (See: WA Post’s story here) didn’t surprise me, but I had to reassure people who don’t live here that things were mostly operating as normal, that I had friends going to the protest zone where people were sharing food and doing poetry readings, you know, truly revolutionary behaviors. Artists drew a beautiful mural spelling out “Black Lives Matter” on the street. Ah! Chaos! So you don’t need to worry about us here, and you definitely shouldn’t support sending in the military. As Han Solo said, “Everything’s fine, we’re all fine here. How are you?”
Speaking of which…I’ll include a gallery of pictures of things that cheered me up this week before I launch into a more serious discussion, including flowers, baby rabbits, hummingbirds, and my cat Sylvia (who really likes to chew jewelry, it turns out. She’s the petite bourgeoisie!) I hope they cheer you up a little too.

Downy Woodpecker in Flight

Considering the Dismantling of Corrupt Systems

I’ve been talking about the defunding the police all week, and this made me think about other corrupt systems, and how we correct them, and if necessary, dismantle them. Does this make me a revolutionary? I think few people would consider me a radical, but the corruption and bias of the police is a big problem, and I don’t think “reform” is enough. At least it hasn’t been enough over the last, oh, I don’t know, 100 years. Besides racism and sexism (talk to me about how the police handle rape and domestic violence cases, in case you want some horror stories), corruption of power, problematic protections by a corrupt police union, the militarization against citizenry, and questionable immunity status…how do you reform the system of policing? Judges, sheriffs, mayors…we vote for them all. Are we holding the people we vote for accountable enough?

And there were aftershocks even in the poetry community. The Poetry Foundation had two resignations. Outrage against editors and publishers bloomed all over social media for offenses minor and major. The discussion of how much writers get paid was also a hot topic – of course, for poets, all mostly a theoretical discussion, getting paid, but interesting to see the disparities nonetheless. Do we hold non-profits and groups who support the arts to the same standards we hold, say, corporations or government entities? Is the literary publishing world as messed up as, say, the educational system (which many would say also needs a little dismantling at this point for its inequities)? Who are we holding accountable, and why? How do we build a better world, the world we say we want? A world that treats people equally regardless of race or gender or (dis)ability? How does that begin? The status quo does not seem to be working for the vast majority.

I often feel like an outsider here in America. After all, I’m disabled and chronically ill (which numerous Americans lately have been indicating makes my life worthless, in the face of the coronavirus) and a woman. I’m white, but I’ve witnessed enough racism to believe that yeah, it’s still a problem that did not magically get erased somehow in the last fifty years. Then there’s the issue of social and economic disparities that appear to be getting worse, not better. So how do we make America better, fairer, a place where everyone can actually have a chance at the American dream even without being born a healthy white heterosexual male?

I’m sorry that this is not a more upbeat post. I’m not feeling my best, I admit, and I feel discouraged with my own body, my country, the poetry world, and etc. I am usually an optimist, but how do we go about making the world a better place, really, for everyone? Yes, we can make our own actions: kindness, justice. We can spend money at businesses and non-profits that do good in the world instead of evil. We can vote for the best possible candidates in an admittedly limited set of candidates in elections local and national.  We can try to create and be positive in our spheres. When we get overwhelmed by the evil forces in the world, what do we do but try to be a force for good, as small as we feel our own lives and influence might be.

 

A Week of Turmoil, A Poem and Photo in 805 Lit + Art, and reading at the St. Martin Bookfair Saturday Night

Early Lavender

A Week of Turmoil

It’s been a week. You can tell because a giant Russian oil spill and asteroid hurtling towards earth didn’t even make the top five news headlines. Coronavirus, levels of which are still rising in the US, has been knocked out of people’s minds by gigantic protests and riots across the country – and even across the world – about police violence against unarmed, innocent African Americans. Police violence isn’t a new problem in the US, and it’s been remarkably persistent, so we need to think about how reform can makes things better, from sending in social workers and therapists to de-escalate with domestic violence and mental illness and wellness checks instead of police to eliminating the budget for police altogether. It’s clear that what we’ve done before hasn’t gotten rid of police corruption, racism, and abuse, so we need to look at new ways to address the issue.

This is a really important time to register to vote, because not only do we vote (hopefully, out) our president in November – which seems crucial to fixing some of America’s problems – but local elections like sheriffs and mayors are coming up. We the people have more power in voting than we think, and I hope we use it.

Poppies and peonies in bloom in Woodinville

Thanks to 805 Lit + Art – a Poem and Photo

I’m very excited to have both a coronavirus poem and a typewriter photo published at a wonderful art and lit mag. Here’s a link to the photo and poem: 805 Lit & Art with photo and poem by Jeannine Hall Gailey.  And it’s run by librarians, some of my favorite people! They have a call for submissions open right now.

And a sneak peek:

Hummingbird hovering at fuchsia flowers

A Reading on Facebook Live and Zoom at the St. Martin Book Fair

I’m so honored that I was asked to be part of this wonderful Caribbean literary tradition, the St. Martin Book Fair, which this year will be help virtually on Facebook Live and Zoom. Here’s an article with more about it. (And a link to the St Martin Book Fair on Facebook, where you can watch classes, readings, and performances as they happen.)

https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/st-martin-book-fair-live-on-facebook-from-today

I’ll be reading Saturday as part of a larger group Zoom reading between 8-10 PM Eastern St. Martin time, which I believe in 5-7 (or 6-8?) PM Pacific. (I’ll be prepared either way.)

And a guide to the whole program – I’ve already watched some of it and it is amazing! It is a wonderful opportunity for American writers to learn more about Caribbean art, music, and literature. I could never have imagined traveling to read in beautiful St. Martin, so I’m very honored that I’ve been included and can participate virtually this year.

A New Poem in the Atlanta Review, Trying to Say Something about America Right Now, and a Grey End of May

Hummingbird and fuchsia flower

A New Grim Poem in The Atlanta Review

First, before we talk about grimmer subject matter, many thanks to The Atlanta Review for taking my poem, “Grimoire,” for their beautiful spring 2020 issue (which I share with my friend Ronda Broatch.)

Here’s a picture of Sylvia with the new issue, and a sneak peek at my poem “Grimoire.” (Click on the poem to enlarge for easier reading.)

 

Towhee protected by spiking branches

Trying to Say Something About America Right Now

Poetry is good, but sometimes it’s not enough. Now, besides the pandemic that has killed 100,000 people with no signs of stopping, we have a growing unrest resulting from the police murder of several African Americans. America, now is the time to do better. To demand better from those in charge and those who wear a uniform.

I grieve for an America that allows men in certain uniforms to murder other unarmed, helpless men and women because of the color of their skin. We need to demand reform and we need to vote out those who are gleeful in their hate (yes, this President, but others, too, and anyone who makes excuses for murder.) We need to ask questions about why white men who spit on service workers and threaten them with guns for wearing masks are called “protesters” while African Americans who speak out about the murder of their people are called “thugs.” We need to ask if the police are actually “Protecting and serving” anyone but themselves, and if not, why has that been allowed and how will we fix it?

Why is it still acceptable to publicly espouse hate?

Orange roses, late May, Woodinville

A Grey End to May

Today has been a grey, rainy day. Seattle is not only under coronavirus-related lockdown but roads have been shut down and a 5 PM curfew has been announced. Trains and ferries have been stopped. The news is full of ugly images.

This morning I attended a two hour online master class from A Public Space on editing creative-non-fiction and fiction. As you probably know if you’re here, I’m mainly a poet, but I occasionally experiment with other forms, and I’d never rule out a short story or a memoir someday, so it’s good to learn about the tools. Check out A Public Space which is also offering free online book clubs.

I then fell asleep for two hours. Zoom still wears me out. I’m not sure if this is an MS thing or what. Does this happen to you guys, or is because of my damaged neurology? Or could it be the massive unrest across the country, the accumulated anxiety of months of lockdown coming to an uneasy end, that makes it hard to have energy for appreciating the good things, like this towhee and orange roses?

I will leave you with an image from an earlier, sunnier day in my neighborhood, with the pale outline of Mount Rainier in the background. Wishing you health and safety, wishing our country justice.

A New Poem in Baltimore Review, Field Guide on a Grim Times Reading List, More Pink Typewriters and Birds, and Weathering May Gloom

Pink Typewriter Paris Vignette

A New Poem in The Baltimore Review and Still in Lockdown in Washington State

It’s the end of the third week of May, and while many states are opening up, my area in Washington State is still mostly in lockdown. This really doesn’t change anything for the likes of me, someone who’s high-risk and immune-compromised, honestly, but I can feel others getting impatient. We still don’t have enough: tests, PPEs, viable treatments. If you feel stressed, remember we’re living through something unfamiliar, unprecedented in either ours or our parents’ time. It’s like the Great Depression plus tuberculosis, with a number of dead in such a short time it rivals a fairly big war. People say, “When are we going back to normal?” and I think to myself, the answer is maybe never. Maybe we won’t go back to crowded concerts or lots of packed-in-sardine-can planes, maybe the sky and water will be cleaner, maybe we won’t shake hands anymore or ever dole out casual hugs to people we don’t know well. Maybe more companies will let their employees work from home and voters will decide universal health is maybe kind of important. Maybe hospitals and retirement homes will be redesigned with more privacy, better ventilation, more sunlight. And we went from “normal” to isolated and scared, dealing with scarcity in all kinds of things (thermometers? vitamin C?) in a matter of days and weeks. We lost 100,000 people,  just in America, in about three months. Of course you don’t feel normal, of course you feel scared and stressed. It would be remarkable if you did not. Don’t worry. I’ve got bird and flower pictures, as well as recommended reading for grim times, farther down the post.

In good news, The Baltimore Review published a new poem of mine, “Planting Camellias as Act of Resistance,” in their latest issue. It’s a wonderful lit mag to check out. And here’s a sneak peek at my poem:

From The Baltimore Review

Three Ways of Looking at a Red-Winged Blackbird

I’ve always liked red-winged blackbirds, and lately they have decided to visit my back deck. Here are three shots, two of which show exactly how much beautiful color they have.

Writer with pink typewriter and pink peonies

Reading for Grim Times

I was honored to have my book Field Guide to the End of the World included in this reading list for grim times, which includes Margaret Atwood, Emily St John, and Traci Brimhall. I’d recommend the entire list. Station Eleven, in particular, shows a clear path for how art can exist after a terrible plague. Of course, her plague is a bit more supernatural than ours but otherwise, it’s a great fable about artists in apocalypse.

And here’s a picture of me with my new vintage pink typewriter. Look how soothing that pink light is – and that’s not a filter, there was an incredible peach afternoon light. It’s been mostly raining this week, but this was a moment of sun.

 

 

Rufous Hummingbird

Wishing you health and safety for your week ahead. I hope you spend Memorial Day in the sunshine with your loved ones, and I hope those of you that work in health care stay safe.

 

 

 

 

How To Promote Your Book During a Pandemic – PR for Poets Tips on Trish Hopkinson’s Blog

Typewriter, Sylvia, magazine, tiara: a still life

How To Promote Your Book During a Pandemic

I don’t usually post two blog posts so close together, but I wrote something for Trish Hopkinson’s blog that I thought might be useful for some of you and it went up this morning. I had several friends who had books come out recently – one who had a novel and a poetry book come out in the last couple of months – and I started to think about how to encourage them to try to promote their books during a undoubtedly tough time for book sales – we can’t even walk into a bookstore right now.

So I sat down and wrote four pages about how to promote your book during a pandemic. I hope you find it useful! And thanks to Trish for hosting me on her fantastic writer’s blog!

PR for Poets, the Book

Here’s the link: How to Promote a Book During a Pandemic on Trish Hopkinson’s Writing Blog

A little excerpt:

“During a pandemic, we’re actually more in need of good, stimulating reading material, not less. People turn to art to help deal with the stress and chaos they’ve been experiencing. But they can’t go browse in a local bookstore and they probably have a hard time filtering promotional posts on social media. So how to get the word out about your fantastic piece of hard work and help your press sell your book so they can stay in business?”

And if you feel like reading more about book promotion, check out my book from Two Sylvias Press, PR for Poets.

And good luck to all of you with books coming out right now. I’m sorry it’s such a hard time, but I hope you get to celebrate your accomplishments at least a little at home, and I’m wishing you the best!

Pink Typewriters, a Charm of Goldfinches, and Why Ina Garten is Helpful in a Pandemic

Sylvia looking into middle distance with pink typewriter

Pink Typewriters, Reading and Other Consolations During a Pandemic

For my birthday, my husband got me a vintage pink Royal typewriter, a working version I can actually type on. I love it and have already really found relief from pandemic stress in arranging photographs of it, as well as typing on it (as, the satisfying bounce of keys – so long forgotten.) Plus I pretty much love anything pink.

I thought of the things that bring us comfort during this pandemic. I talked last week about the pleasures of birdwatching, that being still and having time have made so much more important, somehow. Writing is a consolation, and reading books (in short bursts – anxiety has broken my attention span to about fifteen minutes) and magazines is a definite pleasure, and though I’ve been watching less television, I really enjoyed the Belgravia series, and the Netflix movie The Half of It, a truly intelligent and moving romantic teen comedy written by Alice Wu, who I’m already a fan of. Are these things important? Worthy? Productive? Enough?  Arguably, they are frivolous. On the other hand, to stay sane in the middle on intense stress and uncertainty, perhaps we must embrace some things that are frivolous.

A charm of goldfinches

A Charm of Goldfinches, and Luck in Quarantine

Doesn’t a charm of goldfinches seem magical, like a sign of luck or good fortune? I took this picture one rainy morning this week, I think I’d just had a virtual doctor appointment and gotten a poetry rejection, neither very auspicious. I had a dream last night about Prince, who in my dream, was about to give a concert on my birthday, and came over and introduced himself and told me my work meant a lot to him. I don’t know what that means, but it also seems auspicious.

I keep hoping to wake up and read good news on the news feed instead of more and more terrible news, more death counts, more tragedy. I read the covid research papers every day, hoping one of them will uncover something that will change how we deal with this virus.

Early orange striped rose

Do you believe in luck? Is it bad luck that I’m in a generation that remembers 9/11 clearly, who was in high school when AIDS came onto the scene, and who is now in middle age facing a once-in-a-hundred years sort of pandemic? I had friends in NYC and in DC when the planes hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, but they were, for the most part, safe. My brother, father, and nephew all served in the armed forces, but never had to fight in a war. I’ve been sick enough to die several times, but I didn’t, sometimes out of sheer stubborness, I think. We do not choose our life path as much as we like to think, but we can control some small and large things – decisions on who to spend time with, who to love, to be kind to a stranger, to take a job that pays the bills and makes us somewhat happy. We can decide, for the most part, where we want to live – although most people never venture that far from where they were born. We don’t get to decide who were are born to or how much money we are born with, or what opportunities we get, always. We don’t get to make choices about our physical body – if we are born healthy, or born with deformities and mutations. We don’t get to decide tragedies, or when and how they happen. Control is mostly an illusion. Which is why I like to believe in luck, and good dreams, and charms. And I like to turn my attention to things that are beautiful and things that I can control – like, I can decide to buy some groceries from a local business, or flowers, or give to a local charity, or call a friend who’s stressed. I can decide how to spend my time in quarantine, worried, angry and anxious (my dark side) or focusing on flowers, birds, and books.

Jar of pink peonies

Ina Garten is Helpful in a Pandemic – a Few Thoughts

Ina Garten is a figure I’ve loved since I first started watching her after a random mention of her in a 30 Rock episode made me wonder about her appeal. She has a motherly, intelligent energy, and lives this wonderful, abundant life – she is fabulously wealthy, and makes food for her fabulous friends and her long-time husband who used to be a Dean at Yale, where I was born.

This Atlantic article talks about the bizarre usefulness of Ina’s Instagram in these times of pandemic – people flock there for advice on stocking their freezers, and their pantries, and she responds by showing pictures of her freezer and pantry, and what she is cooking (how to use lentils? Instagram comments ask?), and the cocktails she makes just for herself, whatever time of day.

I’ve always thought Ina would be very helpful during an apocalypse – and I wrote a poem about it you can find in my book, Field Guide to the End of the World. Here it is: “Post-Apocalypse Postcard with Food Network Hostess.” And I’ve got a YouTube video of me reading the poem, in case that would be fun. I hope you find peace and comfort this stressful week. Stay well.

 

Flower Supermoons, the Art and Science of Birdwatching, and Mother’s Day with Social Distancing

Buried Typewriter with red azalea, secret Woodinville location

Have you Forgotten what Day it is? What Month? It’s Time for Flower Supermoons…

Time has no meaning, I read, in quarantine, but it is May, nonetheless, and tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Picture to the left represents my new quarantine-imagined job: giving up the writer’s life to take pictures of vintage typewriters in odd locations.

I like to observe the seasons, the cycles. They do not change, although they may be altered; snow in upstate New York, 85 here in Woodinville today.

A quick addendum to the post: a big thank-you to Seattle Review of Books for publishing my coronavirus poem, “This is the Darkest Timeline.”

Flower Supermoon in May

This week we had the last supermoon of 2020, the Flower Supermoon. Aptly named, as everything seems to be in bloom at once: azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, wisteria. I tend my garden, despite deer coming through and eating my apple blossoms and lily buds, I watch the strawberries start to flower and enjoy the lilac on the breeze.

I try to document the change of seasons, the flowers, the birds. With quarantine I’ve become a better documentarian of local birds; I notice species I could swear I’ve never seen before. I glimpse an osprey overhead with a fish, a red house finch lands briefly on my balcony while I water flowers. I see my first ever black-headed grosbeak. Paying attention to something, taking your time, staying quiet, that’s birdwatching, and gardening, paying attention to something outside yourself. It is surprisingly rewarding. This seems like a metaphor, doesn’t it? If we just stay quiet, and still, we can much better observe the world around us, in all its surprise and beauty. Woodpecker and hummingbird were there the whole time; we just don’t usually notice them.

Mom with Poetry and Ploughshares

Mother’s Day, with Social Distancing

It’s an odd celebration of Mother’s Day, with no brunches, no in-person visits. My father and I are both people considered especially “vulnerable” to covid-19, so we can’t go out carefree even to the park, without masks or worry, or the drug store for a card. I’m happy both my parents are doing as well as they are in Ohio, and we can share little celebrations and worries over the phone and through the mail. Here’s my mom with their copies of April’s issue of Poetry and the Spring issue of Ploughshares, which have my poems in them. Objectively, I think, she is pretty cute. Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

Wherever you are in the world, whether you are a mother or not, times are tough, and you deserve some flowers. Here are the flowers in my neighborhood this week.

I hope May treats you kindly. We will wake up soon, like the princess in an enchanted forest where everyone has been under a spell. We will try not to take everything for granted after this apocalypse: birds, flowers, loved ones, bookstores, drinking coffee with friends, laughing. We will probably fail.

It’s May and Lockdown Continues, Reading Stack During a Pandemic, Celebrating a Melancholy Birthday

Path of fallen cherry blossoms, on my birthday

Celebrating a Melancholy Birthday During Quarantine

So, on a quiet, blowy spring day on the last day of April, I turned 47 during a pandemic. I was going to throw a “Roaring 20s Writer Party” for my birthday, and I even had a flapper dress all ready, but then, you know, coronavirus. So instead we spent a more melancholy birthday close to home. Check out this bower of fallen cherry blossoms petals on the road of a closed winery. Melancholy in one photo, right?

Orange azaleas

Glenn did try to make my birthday as normal as possible – he baked a gluten-free black forest cake, we went and looked at goslings, climbed a hill to smell wisteria in bloom and took this shot of orange azaleas. To celebrate, he got me two sets of flowers, a box of produce, and steaks from Pike Place Market (here’s where you can get a Pike Place box – you’ll be supporting local vendors, and $5 goes to the Pike Place Market Safety Net Fund.) And I did wear my party dress briefly, anyway. I read poetry and relaxed with a great dinner and had lots of phone calls from family and friends. Not a terrible apocalypse birthday, after all.

Sylvia posing with my Open Books birthday package

Reading Poetry During the Pandemic

Have you been wondering what to read during the pandemic?

I just got the birthday package I ordered from Seattle’s Open Books (again, trying to keep our local businesses alive) with Victoria Chang’s Obit and Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem.

And, if you want to know what I’ve been reading, the Poetry Foundation web site asked contributors to April’s Poetry Month issue what we were reading.
Here’s the link to read the whole thing, and a clip of my list.

Poetry Foundation Reading List

Wisteria at a closed winery

May and Lockdown Continues

So, our governor has extended Washington State’s lockdown til May 31. Some things are opening: state parks and elective surgery, some construction. I have a lot of health problems and know I’m at high risk so I’m glad they’re being safe rather than sorry. Some states that opened too soon (Georgia, North Carolina) are already experiencing increased cases. I feel terrible for small business owners, for people who can’t run their businesses during the shutdown. Restaurants in particular will be hard hit. Glenn was working from home since February, and probably will until this fall; even Amazon has announced its tech employees can work from home til October. One in five people in Seattle have filed for unemployment. Meanwhile, things break: cell phones, stand mixers, my laptop. We learn to try to cut our own hair.

Hummingbird with its tongue out

I will admit I miss some things – book stores, coffee shops, seeing my little brother on the weekend or taking a trip to one of the beautiful areas around Washington State. Walking around without being terrified of other people; remember that? This month I usually visit Skagit Valley’s tulip festival, hike around the waterfall at Ollalie State Park, or take a trip to Port Townsend or Bainbridge Island. This month, of course, we’re staying close to home. This is one of the only months that we can get outside (too much rain the rest of the year, wildfires during midsummer) so I understand that people are restless.

Purple lilacs

So, we continue to get by with grocery deliveries and walks around our neighborhood (to avoid people, I mostly walk around abandoned office parks and closed wineries, tbh) and spring continues to bloom. This week, lilacs, azaleas, wisteria. Our lilies were eaten by rabbits (or deer maybe?) but we continue to plant things in the garden.

Tomorrow, which will be good, I’m having a Zoom poetry submission party. I haven’t been submitting as much as I’ve been writing, and I have no idea if anything I’m writing is any good. I’m still looking for a publisher for two of my book manuscripts.

All my ambitious goals haven’t really happened: trying watercolor painting again, learning Japanese for real, but I have been keeping up with reading, learning new skills (like Zoom and haircutting (men’s clippers are hard!) and getting used to physical therapy exercises done by myself with advice by iphone from my physical therapist and virtual doctor appointments (which, frankly, are better than the real thing, no waiting rooms and far fewer needles.) We did a Zoom birthday get-together for my older brother’s birthday, and I’m surprised by how much those wear me out, although it’s a good way to see siblings in multiple states (Tennessee, Ohio, WA.)

For my birthday wishes: I’m hoping our country can get more antibody tests out and a couple of good working treatment options so coronavirus can become less deadly. I’m hoping not to catch covid-19 myself and I do not want to die. I know things will not go back to “normal” for a while, maybe years, maybe masks will become “normal” and cruises will disappear, working and studying from home with become “normal,” and virtual book tours will replace “in-person” author appearances. Maybe our environment will heal a little bit during our downtime. Maybe people will start to realize how important it is to take care of other people, that we are willing to pay a little bit more in order to ensure people have food, health care, and education, that we are willing to clean a little more and wash our hands more to keep others safe. Maybe I’m being optimistic. I picture a world with more birdsong, less traffic, more kindness and appreciation for the people who make our lives possible, like farmers and health care workers and delivery people, a world that embraces science and technology to make life better for everyone. Okay, before this post gets too sentimental, let me wish you a happy, safe, and well May, wherever you are, that you can see some birds and smell some flowers, read some poetry, and be kind to each other. Apocalypses are much better with poetry, flowers, and kindness.

Birthdays During Quarantine, First Pink Dogwood and Goldfinch, Finding Hope In the Apocalypse

First Pink Dogwood Branch

Birthdays During Quarantine

Well, I’m turning another year older this week. And I feel lucky to be doing it – just a couple of years ago this week, I had been about to start chemo for what I had been told was terminal cancer. This was right before I was diagnosed with MS. So, I appreciate being here to celebrate another birthday, I do. It’s hard to celebrate any ordinary thing – like a birthday – while in quarantine, while our country loses over 50,000 people in just a couple of months to a virus that continues to confound doctors and scientists around the world. It’s been hard to celebrate the fact that I got into two of my dream journals, Poetry and Ploughshares, this month, places I have waited years to get into, while worrying about the future of the post office, small publishers, and small bookstores.

First goldfinch, with faux bird

First Pink Dogwood and Goldfinches

One thing I’m definitely doing to stay cheerful – or, well, at least sane – is spending time noticing the small beauties around my home, even on rainy days that don’t seem immediately cheerful. The birds that stop at the feeders, the new flowers as they open. This week, it was pink dogwood, one of my favorite flowers (and one that repeatedly shows up in my poems,) water iris, and goldfinches. Please enjoy this tour of Woodinville birds and blooms.

Finding Hope and Humor in the Apocalypse

I was talking to a friend yesterday about reading during the quarantine. We were talking about how much we hated The Road, and I commented that Cormac was projecting his own inner bleakness onto his apocalypse. I brought up Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and Station Eleven by Emily St. John; one imagines a heroine who rescues the world with her creative force, and the other imagines a post-pandemic world welcoming a traveling tour of Shakespeare performers, a world of grief and terror, sure, but with room for art and artists.  These two books, I think, find the hope in the apocalypse. I like to think Field Guide to the End of the World was my attempt to imagine all the apocalypse scenarios, from Twilight Zone to 2012, with an eye towards the hope and humor of those scenarios. It is intensely difficult to keep your sense of humor and hope right now, I know. It’s scary. I’m having nightmares almost every night.

Tell me how you are coping. Do you have more reading suggestions?  ( I also recommended Rebecca Solnit’s Paradise Built in Hell, a hopeful version of disaster history in the United States.)

In the meantime, here is a video of me reading on YouTube of “Martha Stewart’s Guide to Apocalypse Living,” another poem from Field Guide to the End of the World. I hope it makes you smile. Take care of yourselves this week. Stay safe. Stay well.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall GaileyJeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World.  Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.

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