My Rumpus Review of “Search for a Velvet-Lined Cape and Synthesizing Bad News at Summertime

Thanks to The Rumpus who just published my review of Marjorie Manwaring’s first book, Search for a Velvet-Lined Cape (isn’t that a great title?) You should go read the review and then the book. I get really excited by probably one out of every twenty books of poetry that I read, and this is one of them.

Summer summer summer with its relentless SUNSHINE these days and HEAT and we’re not used to that in Seattle we usually drift through summer in the seventies with no humidity and only the occasional sparkling blue clear day where everyone crowds together by the water, but now we’ve had over twenty days without rain and many days in the eighties and without air conditioning that can be pretty miserable. I walked around a beautiful field of flowers yesterday but the smog hung oppressively over Mount Rainier, so much so you could barely see the white snow on the mountain. I’m so not a sunbunny, as I learned living in San Diego and Napa, I’m quite literally allergic to the sun, so I’m looking forward to Fall, to September, the overcast and the cool rain again.

I’m also figuring out how to synthesize some bad news at a doctor’s appointment, you know how you go and have tests and they let you go again? Well this week, one of my last doctors was all “look at this” and “this shows positively this” (Yes, I’m being cagey as I wait for further testing the next couple of weeks) and I came home and felt scared and blue and made a playlist of songs like “Dark Days” by the Punch Brothers and “Will She Just Fall Down” by Til Tuesday, Fiona Apple, The Cure’s “To Wish Impossible Things” and “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey, a long playlist and listened to it all and let myself feel a little sad, which I don’t usually indulge in. I’m not terribly addicted to robust physicality but I don’t like the feeling of losing things little by little the feeling of normalcy the expectations I guess of things that lie ahead sort of sinister. I’m a poet after all, I don’t need everything to be perfect, I don’t need all of my body to be functioning correctly at the same time, I know already that I am a little mutant and monster and I guess it’s good to get some answers. See? I’m trying to look at the bright side even now. I wish medicine and tests weren’t so expensive these days. I wish I could just let go of expectations and worry and watch the grebe in the pond outside my house and the little families of hummingbirds in my back yard, the egg-sized baby bunnies in the clover of the house down the street, enjoy the jasmine that has come back to life in all this sun and heat.

I will try to be back to my upbeat usual self by the next post. I will hope for unexpected beautiful things. That is the world, it’s beautiful and terrible and we’re rarely prepared.

Black Magic Woman, Derby Days Reading, Teen Workshop with Karen Finneyfrock, Mad Girl’s Love Song, and a 19th anniversary

An interview about black magic influences up for Spoila Magazine here, where you can find about my favorite black magic women, among other things…

http://www.spoliamag.com/talking-black-magic-with-jeannine-hall-gailey/

If you’re going to Redmond’s Derby Days this weekend, I’ll be opening for the band Recess Monkeys on the main stage on Saturday July 13th, reading some lighthearted geek-themed poems at 3 PM. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day, and if you’re an Eastsider, you’re trapped here anyway! Because they’re closing BOTH floating bridges to Seattle this weekend.

I’m particularly happy to be working with Hugo House and Karen Finneyfrock at my last teen workshop on July 24, which Redmond Reporter wrote up here – you should RSVP if you’re a teen or have a teen who enjoys geeky subject matter and creative writing!

http://www.redmond-reporter.com/community/214797091.html

In the middle of reading the Sylvia-before-Ted bio Mad Girl’s Love Song, which I am really preferring to the previous Sylvia bio on my reading list this summer, Pain, Parties, Work – I think because the author seems less enamored of Sylvia and more down-to-earth, I can enjoy it much more and not feel the strain of a biographer trying to gloss over some rather unpleasant Sylvia aspects. I’m definitely not reading either biography to get, you know, tips on how to be a happy poet or how to balance writing and marriage from Sylvia, so what I’m getting from “Mad Girl’s Love Song” that I like is a sense of Sylvia’s fierce competitive side and equally fierce intelligence. Her ambition is daunting to me. I think of myself as pretty ambitious, but compared to Sylvia, I’m sort of lazy. In a fit of serendipity, I also found an article in this month’s Town and Country about artist’s colonies, which told the story of how Sylvia got into…either Yaddo or Macdowell, but basically it was word of mouth, and the whole article made artist residencies seem glamorous and insider-y and unattainable.

Speaking of happy poet marriages…today was Glenn and my 19th wedding anniversary today, but we had so many meetings, appointments, and errands (including a wasted hour at the Courthouse trying to renew our passports (giant fail! and grrr to the unfailingly rude ladies working the booths there, who were not only unhelpful to us after we stood in line endlessly in their grimy un-air-conditioned-on-a-ninety-degree-day holding chambers, but to a single mother holding a squirming toddler trying to get a restraining order for a man who had been threatening her outside her house, whom they also turned away for the improper paperwork that the cops had given her – for shame!) I’d also had an anaphylaxis attack late the night before after getting my b12 shot – it’s happened a couple of times now even pre-medicating with Benadryl, so I may have to stop getting them – and so I wasn’t feeling my best, sort of worn-out and achy, which often happens after those allergic attacks. (PS If you’ve had an allergic reaction to b12 shot, let me know! I hope I’m not the only one, and I’m not sure exactly what in them I’m allergic to yet.)
So we hopefully will celebrate tomorrow, it’s supposed to be lovely and back to my beloved 70’s temperatures, maybe making some osso bucco with polenta, a chocolate souffle, maybe a visit to the Seattle Zoo or the Seattle Art Museum before they shut down our bridges…It’s important to celebrate when and where we can. For every terrible bureaucracy experience, there is a gracious and beautiful experience waiting to happen, right? I’m hoping so.

Mini-Reviews of Render and The Wishing Tomb, Blessing of Long Weekends, and AWP Planning…already?

The four-day weekend of seventy-degree days, a blessed lack of traffic, walks with the wind off the cool water watching eagles feed their eaglets…time to read a couple of books, including two poetry books I’ve been meaning to review here and a book of Isak Dinesen’s, Winter’s Tales, a melancholy collection of short stories that were combinations of Hans Christian Andersen-toned fairy tale and morality tale with a twist.

Someone mentioned AWP 2014 to me today, and I thought, do I need to start planning things like readings and off-sites and parties already?? Yikes! I was thinking of trying to throw a party at my little townhouse, but we’re twenty minutes’ drive away from the conference site, so that might not be feasible. Maybe a collection of readings at a cupcake shop?

Mini-reviews!

I won a copy of Amanda Auchter’s The Wishing Tomb during the Great Poetry Giveaway, and I was delighted, because I really enjoyed Amanda’s first book and her previous chapbook, and was excited to read her follow-up effort. This was a wonderful sensual exploration of the history and personalities of New Orleans, from the 1600’s to Katrina, and conjures the sights, sounds and smells of the French Quarter, the mysterious charms and dangers, the crimes, the social injustices and heartbreaks. Dead prostitutes and magic charms, Jazz funerals and tombstone offerings. From the title poem, “The Wishing Tomb:” “Give me what you wish:/ bread crumbs, earrings, your high-heeled shoe/ and I will show you what you’ve earned:/ a rain-smeared kiss, a letter, or nothing/ but nights of teacups, an empty bed.”

Collin Kelly’s poetry has been on my radar for a while, because of our mutual love of pop culture figures, particularly superheroes. I think this book might be my favorite of Collin’s, at once more personal and more universal – memories of Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair, first boyfriends and early sexual experiences, family vacations juxtaposed with dreams of Charlie’s Angels, Pam Grier, and Lois Lane.  Especially touching moments include, in “Parallel Lines,” the speaker describing his grandmother dancing with him to “Heart of Glass,” and the speaker’s empathy during Margot Kidder’s breakdown, remembering her wonder in the arms of Superman in flight.  From “to Margot Kidder, with love:” “Margot Kidder was Lois Lane./ Fiesty, brave, in perpetual need of rescue./ Her dark hair, un-PC cigarette dangling,/ whiskey voice, in love with the one man/ she could never truly have.”

Happy Holiday Weekend, Shock Treatment, Intro to Time Travel, and Not Having All the Answers

I am wishing everyone a wonderful holiday weekend. We here in the NW are having record-breaking heat, which means I have to avoid being outside because I am easily scorched. In the last three days, I’ve been repeatedly shocked (nerve tests at a neurologist, this time for numbness in my arm and hands – it’s a standard carpal tunnel test, but it was miserable) and had three episodes of anaphylaxis at 2 AM  (maybe related to the sun? Even my allergist is stumped.) Yes, so I am looking forward to a few days with less trauma and maybe less sun and way more antihistamines. And let me tell you, I do not think that the old-fashioned shock-therapy was a good cure for anything, after my experience yesterday! It left me with little “echo-zaps” in my arms and legs for hours – super disconcerting – and I can’t imagine someone thinking this might be good for state of mind! No thank you! Poor Zelda and Sylvia!

Thanks for all the positive feedback from my last post, but I wanted to say, I don’t really even want to pretend to have all the answers. I’m definitely still stumped by the same problems everyone else has – how do you find a good teaching job/job for a writer that pays the rent/student loans? How do you find a good publisher? Which journals do you send your work to? I still ask myself all these questions, plus more! All I can do here is entertain our thoughts and arguments about obstacles, problems, and tricky riddles – basically you’re watching my own struggles to figure out, yes, what to do next. So, you’ve published three books. What do you do with your next book? So, you’ve been Poet Laureate of a city. What do you do next? In the last few days, I’ve made some next steps – hopefully forward – and will see how they turn out. I’ve tried to make positive movements, and not only that, but tried to work with some friends to also help them make positive steps forward, because, I guess, I feel best not just when I succeed, but when I can help someone else succeed at the same time. I consider myself a fighter for sure, but I also have that weird female trait, which is, not just to conquer, but to nurture and conquer (kind of like Daenerys, the only character you can really root for in Game of Thrones. Plus, dragons! Except, so far, for me, very few dragons. I’m still hoping though! At least for some fire lizards!  Oh, addendum, my friend Felicity reminds me that we also root for Arya. Of course. My apologies.)

Speaking of sci-fi references , you’re interested in my new poems, or in time travel theory, then check out this new poem, “Introduction to Time Travel Theory,” in Apex and Abyss. The poem is supposed to be in couplets, but I think it didn’t come through in the online version. Just mentally read it in couplets, then. And nerd alert: if you can catch all the pop culture references in the poem and name them, I’ll send you a mystery prize! http://www.abyssapexzine.com/2013/06/introduction-to-time-travel-theory/

Secret to Writing Success #43: Don’t Get in Your Own Way

I’ve been talking about success as a writer lately, and today I want to talk about what can sometimes be your biggest tripping point on the path to success – yourself.
I’ve been teaching and mentoring writers for a few years now and have recently been alarmed by an increase, especially in women writers, of a certain crisis in confidence, a kind of self-sabotage, that causes them to be the biggest obstacle in their paths to writing success. I don’t want to give away any secrets, but let’s look at some things female writers have said and done lately that made me just want to get up and shout: Don’t be the thing that keeps you from succeeding!
–A young student confessed after a reading that she was in tears every night after her old-white-dude adviser at her MFA program (which shall not be named, but it wasn’t Pacific U) said some mean things in his critiques, and that therefore, she didn’t want to write anymore. (Full disclosure: my MFA advisers were so kind this literally never happened to me. I think maybe one of them criticized my use of commas, which was probably well-deserved, but they were all to a person so supportive and encouraging that, much like this example girl writer might think if her adviser was encouraging instead of critical, I feared they were lying to me. That’s right, when they criticize you, you cry, but when they praise you, you worry they’re lying. Sigh. Because I also lacked confidence in my own writing for many years. Well, I still sort of do, but I just grit my teeth and get on with it now.) Um, your adviser is there to help you, he is not a father figure you need to impress. Really. Take the comments that help you and ignore the rest. This goes for mean people in writing groups, workshops, and editors, too.
–A woman writes a terrific book that gets published with a really good press, but is afraid to do anything to promote it, not wanting to appear too self-promoting or selfish or proud or whatever. Therefore, no one hears about her terrific book, while dozens of mediocre books are lauded far and wide. This is part of what motivates me to write book reviews, but really, if you have a great book, you have to do the work to get it some attention.
This is also a self-prescription. Go ahead, what are you afraid of, a little success?
–A publisher asks for someone’s book manuscript, which almost NEVER HAPPENS, and that person doesn’t send it because they’re worried “it’s not good enough…” For years. That’s not your decision, it’s the publisher’s. Books that do not get sent out are impossible to publish. If a publisher asks for your work, send the work without any questioning.
–Bright young writers who feel that their work, which has been praised by workshop leaders and friends alike, isn’t good enough to send out to publish, so they never send it. So it never gets published.
–Or, bright young writers send out a few individual poems, but don’t feel like their work deserves/is good enough/is well-organized enough fo a chapbook or full-length collection, so they never spend the time crafting a chapbook or full-length collection. It’s really hard to get a chapbook or book published if you never put one together. Plus, putting one together is an eye-opening journey into your own psyche – what are you protecting yourself from? Put the book together! Then send it out!
–Bright young writer gets a really specific and mean-spirited rejection, and stops writing because of it. Bright young writer gets mean workshop criticism, and stops writing because of it. Bright young writer thinks, what’ the point of publishing anyway, nobody reads poetry, what’s the point? And stops writing because of it. Writers who stop writing? Don’t magically find success. Writers who keep writing no matter what? Yes, you guessed it.

I hate to say this, but very few of the young men (literally, maybe only one or two) I’ve worked with have struggled with any of the above, regardless of the quality of their writing. Therefore, those guys have several books and a tenure-track teaching job now. Just think of that, ladies, and let it motivate you to not stand in the way of your own writing. Send it out, be proud, take the time to work on it and make it the best it can be but then for God’s sake send it out and when it gets published then promote it without feeling ashamed. Because I guarantee you the boys aren’t worrying about whether they seem selfish or whether some publisher will send them a mean note – they are sending out their work and thinking it is the best thing since the invention of the atom bomb. And guess what? That will make them successful a lot faster than if they were sitting fretting in their rooms about whether their work was even worth writing or not, or whether some group of writers or their teachers like them, or if their work deserves attention. So I prescribe a kind of exercise in reckless courage – write a poem you think everyone will hate and then send it out to the best journal you can think of. Write the book inside you, even if it scares you. The worst thing that might happen to you is not that bad, and the best is that you create some art that might even get noticed.

PS Please do not let this post be one more thing that makes you feel bad about yourself, either.

Notes on a visit to Pacific University’s MFA residency

Back from a trip down to Oregon to visit my MFA alma mater, Pacific University, to speak on a panel about “Life After the MFA.” I think the talk went well, and though I thought the audience would be 30-40 people, it was more like 150! My part of the talk included a lot of tips that I’ve been writing about here the last few weeks – but it was sort of overwhelming to try to sum up the last seven years of teaching, publishing, volunteering, and lately, working for the city of Redmond as Poet Laureate, plus tips I hoped would be useful to students about to graduate! Well, if you were there and have any questions, I’m here so shoot me an e-mail and I’ll do my best to answer them! I mean, I don’t have all the answers about life after the MFA – far from it – but I like discussing it!

I got to see a few old friends from my days in the program, catch up with almost all my former professors still working at the program, and meet a bunch of interesting, lively, intelligent students – some of whom I had e-mailed with or been Facebook or twitter friends but got to finally meet in person. During my visit I got to field questions about everything from how to find places to publish “geeky” poetry (I wrote a bit about speculative poetry markets in one of the Poet’s Markets from the last few years, in case you want to look it up) to how to put together a chapbook, how to deal with workshop criticism, how to volunteer for a literary magazine and how to plan for financial stability after graduation. I was impressed again with how much enthusiasm and energy everyone had.

Below, pics: a trio of redheaded poets (Mary Bond, Larissa Nash, and myself) – me with Joe Millar and Dorianne Laux – and posing with Twitter friend Killian Czuba…

And a final note to any of the young poets I have talked to recently – because I’ve been thinking about it ever since a young woman poet (not at Pacific) was telling me about crying all through her school semester because her advisor’s notes about her work were so rough: remember, the only person you need to please with your writing is really YOU. They (your workshop, your advisor, that guy who wrote that really mean rejection or review) are there for you, to use their advice to help you or to ignore as you choose, so are not worth your tears, not even one. Channel your inner cranky Margaret Atwood-poet-warrior-self. Curse if you want, but mostly, don’t worry about pleasing everyone. Remember so much of the writing life is getting back up after being smacked down, and going for the next round – it’s the only path to a sustainable life as an artist.

Life After the MFA and my poem “Elemental” up at Rattle

I’m on the road with a bad internet connection today but wanted to post two quick things!
My poem “Elemental” is up at Rattle today and you can hear me read it there. (PS This poem is up for a Rhysling Award, so if you’re part of the SFPA, vote 🙂
http://www.rattle.com/poetry/2013/06/elemental-by-jeannine-hall-gailey/

And I’ll be doing a talk tomorrow at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon on “Life After the MFA.” Wish me luck! And if you’re at the Pacific residency, come by and say hello!