In Which Many Things Happen All at Once
So, signing the new book contract with Kitsune, and signed on a final offer for a townhome near Glenn’s work within the same 24 hours. The place needs a little work, but is mostly in good shape. Hope the inspection and appraisal both go okay! Today I talk to my money person to see what stuff we need to get together and by when. It’s been a bizarre process shopping for a house during this so-called buyer’s market – because of the low prices, there’s been very little inventory, and so, very few houses to look at over the past four months that were even close to being okay to live in without needing, say, 75K worth of work. Two interesting web sites for those of you interested in Seattle real estate: the Seattle Bubble blog and The Mortgage Porter, both of which I’ve been reading religiously for about four months along with scouring real estate listing site Redfin. I’m glad I can finally stop reading them all ! This is the last time I want to move for a while.
Now, my National Advanced Poetry Class is starting up in a week or two, plus I’m putting together a proposal this month for a very exciting possible project that I can’t talk about yet but I will ask you guys to cross your fingers for me on…And writing a bunch of reviews. With the writing life, it’s so much about a life of months of waiting, followed by two weeks of hectic opportunities that must be accomplished all at once…
Amid all the excitement, I want to say I’m excited about the upcoming April 4 reading at Hugo House for the persona poetry anthology A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry
; I’ll be reading my own poem included in the anthology, “When Red Becomes the Wolf,” and also Charles Jensen’s “After Oz.” The other readers are all fantastic and I expect it to be a really fun happening.
IthacaLit and a Tuesday Night Reading
So happy to be the featured poet up at IthacaLit. You can click here to read my interview there or here to read some poems (including some sneak peek new poems from my upcoming third book, Unexplained Fevers…see previous post for more news about that!)
And my last March reading…I happen to be reading in a coffee shop tonight with a few other talented writers in North Seattle at Seattle Mobile Espresso, 13000 Linden Avenue North – one block west of Aurora, from 7 PM to 8:30, part of the ThirdTuesdays Poets and Writers series.
The weather has been weirdly wintry, my life is in a whirlwind of upheavals, most of which are good. If we hear back positively tomorrow from a seller, we may have a new – and permanent – little homestead to move to within a month! Whereupon we will start the bookshelf-building and painting preparations…
Unexplained Fevers, my third book, coming out in 2013!!!
Yes, good news to announce today…It’s official! Kitsune Books will publish my third book, “Unexplained Fevers,” in late 2013!!!
This book is especially exciting for me because it will be a collaborative book with Seattle painter Deborah Scott, and will be unusual because it will feature color art plates of her paintings along with my poems! If you take a look at her paintings, you will see why her art and my poems might be a good fit…she has a subversive sense of humor and pop culture influences in her fairy tale paintings that will be fantastic in the book! So I’m super excited!
Did I mention today I put in an offer on a townhouse as well? It’s a day of contracts and excitement. And Happy Luck of the Irish! Since I’m turning 39 next month, there’s this sense of everything coming together right before my 4th decade begins…
A few things: Appearances, APR, Opportunities to Review, haiku get-togethers, Lessons from a person with a degree in poetry, and More…
If you are at all interested in still writing a review of She Returns to the Floating World, Galatea Resurrects has a copy waiting to be reviewed…here’s a link to this and other books they have available! I love reviewing for Galatea Resurrects. Eileen is so wonderful!
I am very excited to announce that I will have a poem in the upcoming May/June issue of American Poetry Review! Eeeep! I have been reading APR for so many years and can’t believe I’m finally appearing there! And it’s from my third book manuscript. Which I may have news about soon…
Speaking of appearances, here is an appearance that I am honored to be be invited to…the Japan Language Meetup on April 10, where we will be talking about haiku. Here’s a little bit more about it.
In other news, have been running a 101 fever and head feels like it is rattling full of hammers. Going on a week now. Note: this is not as conducive to poetry, dear universe, so how about a break with the thundersnow and such, just some regular nice spring weather would be great! (My home town of Cincinnati today was a sunny 77 degrees. Way to make us look bad, midwest!) Basically, every time I walk outside, I get sicker. Cough. Achoo. Blusterhailsnow. On the plus side, my husband has provided me a vase full of daffodils, some British fashion magazines, and a page of My Little Pony stickers as “get-well-soon” totems. And he learned how to make wheat-free crepes.
On the downside, even looking at consolidating my student loans made me so depressed I had to quit looking at them, and still in the anxiety-about-finances-provoking state of house-searching. Kids, a little life lesson courtesy of Auntie Jeannine: if you’re going to spend a lot of money on a degree, be sure it enables you to do something that actually makes money. That is all.
My poem, Anime Girl Delays Adulthood, is up as Indigest’s poem of the day!
One of the poems from my book, She Returns to the Floating World, is featured as Indigest’s Poem of the Day podcast today! Check out a reading and description of “Anime Girl Delays Adulthood:”
http://workflowwriting.com/657298/poem-of-the-day-jeannine-hall-gailey-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Canime-girl-delays-adulthood%E2%80%9D-03-09-12.php
Crisis and Creativity
So, I’ve noticed there is a connection in my life between crisis – of health, of emotion or intellect, – and my creative output.
This weekend, for instance, I had a dangerous allergic reaction to a new medication that, ironically, was meant to tone down the allergic reactions I’ve been having. The day I had the anaphalaxis, I was wiped out and tired. But the next day, I found a creative solution to the problems we’ve been having looking for a house. And the day after that, I wrote three new poems – after weeks of not much writing, they came to me easily. It reminded me about how I felt after I was hospitalized for pneumonia in California – despite being wiped out physically for months afterwards, creatively I became driven, focused, and energized.
This – along with a feature article someone sent me about the Fukushima area 1 year later and the cleanup effort brought to mind our whole world’s differing responses to crisis. How we survive by figuring out new ways to live. How Japan mobilized a ton of people to protest nuclear power and its government and company’s responses to the disaster, how Japan’s disaster may change the direction of not only Japan, but America’s commitment to safer energy sources.
There are several ways to respond to a threat – you can panic, which, as we know from Douglas Adams, is never the answer (and bring a clean towel,) you can give up, or you can figure out a way to adapt and respond in a way that will help you deal with the next problem you encounter. It also reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Katniss in the Hunger Games – when confronted with a new monster, or a new trap, every time, they had to continually improve.
Or maybe this is all the ramblings of a madwoman. Anyway, a couple of new poems, there’s some sunshine outside, and I may have found a permanent place to live for us in this cloudy mountain wetland (well, in six months or so, after it’s finished…)
Arietty, Hunger Games, Missing AWP…
- At March 02, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Arietty, AWP, Hunger Games
3
Just got home from seeing The Secret World of Arietty, Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s new film, based on the English novel that I loved as a child, The Borrowers. This version has an extra touch of heart provided by the threat of Borrower extinction and the illness of the main human character of the film. A surprising dialogue on death and dying at the center of the film provides depth to what is essentially a light adventure children’s film, along the lines of My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service (for those of you familiar with Miyazaki’s other films for children.) The animation was, of course, beautiful and bucolic, a speciality of Ghibli studios.
Contrasting this is the drumbeat of promotions for The Hunger Games, the new movie based on the hyperviolent trilogy about a killer teen heroine and her futuristic dystopia scarier than anything Atwood’s come up with. Katniss Everdeen is like Buffy without the quips and fashion sense, an action hero for the Millenial generation. There’s nothing calm, soothing, or sweet about this trilogy of movies or books; I found them disturbing as an adult, including scenes of dismemberment, torture, brainwashing… and they must be super disturbing for the younger readers they’re meant for. I’m torn because part of me cheers for the female teen heroine Katniss, who is tough, unconcerned about the young men falling in love with her as she tries to save herself, her family and eventually, her political cause. She’s too busy trying to survive to worry about boys; her moral sense comes more as a contrast to the evil, corrupt adults around her than any specific goodness. As a metaphor for young people navigating a kill-or-be-killed adult world with a kind of horror and disorientation, it works pretty well. However, I’d much rather my imaginary children watch Arietty, at least into their midteens, than the Hunger Games.
Missing AWP this week has been tough, especially as my heroine Margaret Atwood was the keynote, and hearing on Facebook all week about the parties, readings, etc, made it hard not to be there. But this year I’m tightening my belt to afford my first house in twelve years, and a house in this area, even after years of house prices dropping, still isn’t cheap. This means I’m relying on you bloggers lucky enough to go to post your impressions, anything great, etc! And pics!
Montaigne Medal Finalist!
Just had a little good news this morning, after a week of on-and-off flu and accompanying blues…that my second book, She Returns to the Floating World, is an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist! If it wins, this means the book will get coverage in the US Review of Books, which would be pretty great for a little poetry book like mine, so cross your fingers for me!
I’m not even sure who nominated me, but whomever it was, thanks a big bunch!
In other news, I wrote a new poem yesterday. I’ve been feeling a bit blue with the illness stuff and maybe a bit of burnout and missing AWP and doing all those grant applications where you feel your chances are one in a billion…sometimes the poetry world can get us a little down. So every piece of good news should be celebrated! A new poem! A little award finalist news!
Going to see a house this afternoon that might be the one, though it’s a little pricey. In lovely Kirkland, a community I like a lot, woods in the backyard…but it’s a re-done 1950’s house so we have to see the inspection before we decide anything…Cross your fingers for me house-wise too!
Thanks again, blog readers, for your encouragement and support. It means a lot. I think this little community of folks is like my almost-family.
Teaching persona poetry, and a Face to Meet the Faces
Happy Mardi Gras! Appropriate for a day of masks, today I had the lovely opportunity to teach the persona poem to a great group of students at Cascadia Community College. It was a lovely and enthusiastic group of people and I always enjoy talking about persona poetry, which I happen to still feel passionate about. We talked about zombies, the Hunger Games, Buffy versus The Vampire Diaries, anime and haibun, as well. Good times.
Arriving about two hours too late for the class, my contributor copy of the persona poetry anthology A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry came in the mail today. I was happy to be keeping company with wonderful poets like Collin Kelly, Jericho Brown, Ivy Alvarez…an interesting aspect is that the editors had the writers write a short note about their use of persona at the end of the book, so if you’re using this as a teaching tool, that would be great for students! It is true there is not a lot of material available for those teaching persona poetry, so this anthology is a welcome addition. I’m looking forward to using it next time I teach persona poetry!
Happy Fat Tuesday! AWP is almost upon us. I’m sad to be missing it but hope you will all have a great time and bring home to your blogs lots of gossip. I am so ready for February to be over already – this is Seattle’s meanest month, for sure. I saw a branch of cherry (or plum?) blossoms outside of a decaying barn on the way to see a house a few days ago, I think that was the first sign that indeed there may be life in this earth after the long winter…
Interview at Collin Kelley’s blog, last night’s reading video, and The Pinch
Collin Kelley graciously asks me five questions at his blog today. Thanks, Collin!
http://collinkelley.blogspot.com/2012/02/five-questions-for-jeannine-hall-gailey.html
If you are interested, you can see video of last night’s Redmond reading with Martha Silano at SoulFood Books:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20496574
There’s some odd guitar music over part of the reading, I think I start reading at about minute five. There’s also an odd extreme closeup around minute 6.
Got my contributor’s copy of the Spring 2012 The Pinch in the mail, which contains two of my poems, “Lessons in Poison” and “She Ought to Be In Politics.” It’s a lovely well-produced magazine, with color art, as well as poems from Marge Piercy and Alison Pelegrin.
I also got a real-live medal from the FPA President’s award for my book, and a $10 check from Indiana Review. All in all, a good mail day for a poet.
Jeannine 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.
