November Gloom: Too Many Storms and Rejections

November Gloom: Too Many Storms and Rejections

I’m not going to lie: this has been a tough week. The weather has been a series of emergency alerts: wind storms that knock out power, rain that brings flooding and mudslides. Absolutely no outdoor time for me this week, even on my deck or to get mail. My computer (six months old, too expensive) is on the fritz and looks like it needs replacing already. I’m worried about my parents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, many of whom had health crises this week: falls, hospital trips, illnesses, house problems. The news isn’t so cheery these days either. Three snow leopards at a Nebraska zoo died of covid. Damn it covid, stay away from our snow leopards! A GOP school district in Kansas banned books by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Alice Walter, among others. Book burnings next? Yikes.

The time change, as predicted, has completely thrown off my sleep patterns, and I’m still fighting off a respiratory infection (non-covid) that has lasted three weeks now. I also received some really devastating rejections on my books this week. Some just feel more personal, more life-destroying, than others, right? Rejections that make you think: maybe I shouldn’t really be a writer. Maybe I should find something else and do that. I wish I had a publisher or a mentor who cared about me enough to advocate for me.

Going outside, pretty much my one area of consolation during the pandemic years, is cut off when there is driving wind and rain toppling power lines and trees and you’re running a fever anyway.

I’m still reading – in fact, I ordered some new books – poetry and some fiction on the theme “dark academia” – but not much writing and almost no submitting is happening.

Looking on Insta at friends who are healthy enough to travel and vacation in sunnier climes or visit family or go to conferences just makes me depressed, since as an immune-compromised person, I’m still not out of the covid woods and can’t even consider travel. Heck, I can’t even get over this regular run-of-the-mill sinus/bronchitis infection. My doctors can’t even say if I’m healthy enough to get a booster shot (too many of my special weird health problems interact with too many things to make any booster shot a clear win for me.)

I almost didn’t post this because I thought it would be too much of a downer. But hey, when you’re a chronically-ill, disabled person in a pandemic who is also experiencing a lot of “no” from her passion/vocation and there’s very little happy news – just grueling rounds of MRIs, blood work, doctor appointments, and even more of same- while separated from your family (going through their own stuff) and friends (also going through their own crises) then it’s just hard to rustle up a cheerful post in the darkest days of the darkest time of year. In case you ask, yes, I meditate, yes, I write down a gratitude list, yes, I’m taking vitamin D. Is this MS, SAD, perimenopause? Or “just” the length of the pandemic? I don’t know. But my reserves have been swallowed up.

Time Change, A Poem in Waterstone Review, Surviving November in the Second Year of the Plague

November Sunrise

Time Change and the Pacific Northwest

I am not a big fan of time changes. I wish it just stayed on Daylight Savings Time all year round, which gives Seattle more sunlight when we’re actually awake. We actually voted as a state to get rid of the time change, but turns out states don’t have that power.

This picture is not the sunrise this morning, but a few days ago, when it wasn’t quite so gray and gloomy. In fact, it occurs to me the poem I’m including in this post is very season-appropriate!

November isn’t the most picturesque time in the Pacific Northwest, but I did manage to get a few pictures this week that might fool you into thinking it is. Here’s Glenn and I at Chateau Ste Michelle, their harvest decor, and a rainbow on one of our stormy/sunny days this week, with our last blooming cosmos.

Sylvia with Water~Stone Review

A Poem in the new 2021 Water~Stone Review

So happy to get my contributor’s copy of Water~Stone Review’s annual print issue, which included my poem, “On the Autumn Equinox, 2019” but also poems by friends like Oliver de la Paz, January O’Neil, Todd Kaneko, and Alison Pelegrin.

The letter from the editor for this issue begins: “This issue is haunted.”

Here’s a sneak peek at my poem: (Click to enlarge)

From the Water~Stone Review

Surviving November in the Second Year of the Plague

There’s a spot on the grounds of the Columbia Winery near my house where I can reliably find Fairy Tale mushrooms (or Amanita muscaria) every year, but not until the flowers are nearly done and it’s started to feel like winter. It seems like a metaphor for the hidden beauties of this time of year; sometimes they take a little seeking out.

There was a meme going around on social media, something like, “This month I’m doing a challenge called November. It’s where I try to make it through every day of November.” That feels very true this year, in which we find ourselves confronting the end of the second year of the pandemic, getting booster shots, still unsure of whether it’s safe or not to…travel? see loved ones? have an indoor holiday dinner? It’s deflating to think that we are still dealing with the uncertainty and misery of the pandemic even after vaccines, plus now empty shelves at the stores (supply chain issues,) and a general feeling of malaise that’s hitting everyone from doctors (my brilliant hematology specialist of 18 years is going on “unlimited sabbatical” and my ER doctor friend from Alaska has moved to New Zealand) to mailpeople and retail workers. Don’t feel bad – this is hard. It is not your imagination. Do what it takes to survive this winter, and don’t feel like you have to be your usual ambitious, sparkling, driven self. I know I am casting around, looking for escape – should I move again? Get a job in a different city? Should I just decorate for the holidays way early, put on pajamas for the whole month and constantly stream Christmas specials?

“Adjusting expectations” seems like a continuous lesson of the pandemic. If you can’t get across country to see your family, well, you can still walk around a new neighborhood, try a new apple variety at your local farmer’s market, pick up a new book you might not usually read. If you miss shopping in stores in real life, there’s online shopping – there’s Facetime for talking to friends – and hey, it’s the perfect time to clean out your closet and send a box of clothes to charity or ThredUp. Yeah, these aren’t the options I was hoping to be facing at the end of this year, either. I sort of never want to hear the word “resilience” ever again. Anyway, if you are feeling down, or off, that’s okay. Rest up. Make whatever your favorite fall thing is – pumpkin pie, caramel apples, or just a grilled cheese sandwich or have a hot chocolate. Try to be kind to those around you – your family, friends, and people you interact with are likely also struggling. Don’t try to be cheerful when you’re not feeling it, don’t push yourself to fake anything right now. Read Yeats’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” which feels timely always, but especially right now. Light a fire; hang some lights; burn a favorite candle. It’s Diwali, Southern Asia’s festival of lights, which celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. I believe in that, in turning away from giving in to despair and trying to hope, to think of light in the darkest days.

Happy Halloween (and a Spooky Poem,) Living with MS and Selma Blair’s Documentary, and Turning Dark

Pumpkin Display at JB’s Pumpkin Patch

Happy Halloween!

Well, kids, the end of October is upon us, and so is Halloween, Samhain, the Day of the Dead – basically a time to recognize the beginnings of the darkest time of year, a time to take stock, to pay respects to ancestors and those we’ve lost. A good time for ghost stories and watching horror movies. A great time, also, to celebrate the harvest.
After a week of dark, cold, and “bomb cyclone” storms here in the Pacific Northwest, and me recovering from a (non-covid) nasty cold, we had a welcome sunny day today and went around to farmer’s markets in our neighborhood (apples, fennel, peppers, and squash are perfect right now) and even to a pumpkin patch. It was nice to walk around outside without getting soaking wet (we were not having drizzle, more like downpours all week) even if we had to put on a sweater AND a jacket.

Glenn and Jeannine with sun flare and harvest decor in Woodinville

I think fall food is my favorite, and it’s fun to have the colors and smells of the season in the house. To celebrate the harvest here at our house, we are making delicata squash risotto with fennel tonight, and plan to make some pumpkin goat cheese tamales tomorrow (it’s possible we bought too many pumpkins…) We’re also going to set up an outside bench with a table for candy (and rubber ducks for the allergic) for the kids – still outdoors, but hopefully safe for everyone involved. Pandemic Halloweens for two years in a row must be hard for children.

Below you can see me in cheetah ears and cat’s eye sunglasses in Kirkland, a spooky waning Harvest moon, and a Towhee dressed perfectly for Halloween in black and orange (with red eyessss…so spooky!)

Me in sunglasses, fall colors in my yard

Introducing Selma Blair and Talking About Living with MS

This week I watched the moving documentary, “Introducing Selma Blair,” on Discovery+.

Glenn and I with pumpkin display at JB’s pumpkin patch, in sunglasses

In case you’re wondering, one of the reasons so many pics feature me in sunglasses is because they help limit stressful brain stimulus. Yes, I walk with a cane, and sometimes, for distances, a wheelchair. I try to stay as active as possible, despite vertigo, some memory issues and foot drop.

Finally, a Spooky Poem, as Promised!

“The Year I Became a Witch,” in Gingerbread Lit

Glenn and I in the sun at a pumpkin patch

Turning Dark

Though all the pictures we took today were in the bright sunshine, the truth is our days of sunshine are going to be limited – especially after this month, especially after the time change, which robs us of desperately needed afternoon sunlight time.

I try to embrace the darkness rather than fight it; see it as an opportunity to change some habits, get to sleep earlier, rest more, take my vitamins, cultivate indoor activities and of course, as a writer, read and write more. For some delicious fall reading, I recommend two books I’m in the middle of: Louise Gluck’s perfectly seasonal and melancholy Winter Recipes from the Collective, which I think is her best book in years, and the art-world mystery which I picked up because it’s loosely based on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland. If you haven’t read Rebecca, definitely read that first. A very haunting classic.

What do you do to get through the dark times? (Yes, I realize we are literally going through a dark time because the economy, pandemic, etc. as well as literally getting into darker, colder months.) Do you have any tips for not totally ruining your internal clock with the time change? I am wishing you all kindness, health, and happiness as we turn towards a new season and the end of a difficult year.

A Blustery Week, Ferry Foibles, Visiting Friends and Family Over the Water

Glenn and I at Pumpkin Patch (McMurtrey’s Farm)

A Blustery Week

It’s been a blustery week – the Pacific Northwest hit with “bomb cyclone” weather patterns – right now, I’m typing as my power is flickering on and off. We tried to make the best of the brief mornings and afternoons of slightly better weather whenever we could.

Blustery weather cannot be a surprise to us in the Pacific Northwest – we often get a windstorm so fierce it blows down the leaves before they even get a chance to turn. The one good thing about cold wet weather is it keeps you inside, so you get more writing, editing, and submitting work done. I was, however, darting out whenever there was sun to plant bulbs, even visiting pumpkin farms and farmer’s stands during relatively calm warm intervals between rain, cold, and wind. The hummingbirds and woodpeckers are still as active as ever. We only got to see the fuzzy waning Harvest moon one night, as the others were too cloudy to see anything, but we can feel the time change coming, and the temperatures dropping, and the days getting shorter – yes, fall has definitely arrived. We are eating more than our share of the beautiful apples out here, as well – favorite varieties include Cosmic Crisp, Candytime, and Pazazz.

Glenn and I with little brother Mike and sister-in-law Loree at their back deck

Ferry Troubles and Visiting Friends and Family Over the Water

We did finally make it across the water for our visit to see friends and family, despite the ferry foibles (sickouts, vaccine protests, staffing problems, etc., cutting service down to one boat on all the usual ferry routes) it just took a little longer and felt a little more stressful.

It reminded me that living across the water, thought beautiful and more affordable, was so stressful for me because you are always at the mercy of the ferry (and sometimes bridge) schedules. Never could be sure you’d make a doctor’s appointment or a friend’s reading on time. You have to cultivate more Zen than I think I have in me to live out there permanently.

The trip, though hampered by the aforementioned foibles, was worth it! As with all great journeys, this one took some careful planning and plotting, but we had some grand adventures, too.

Kelli and I in the gazebo overlooking the Puget Sound

First, we got a chance to visit with my poet friends (and Two Sylvias Press editors) Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, who came and met me at the ferry arrival area. We shared carrot apple ginger cupcakes in a gazebo overlooking the water and got caught up on writing news in the brisk outdoors. I also picked up a pack of the Two Sylvias Poet Tarot set. It was great seeing friends IN PERSON again. I forgot how great it is socializing in real life, especially with other writers!

Then we traveled on to see my little brother Mike and sister-in-law Loree at the new house they’re renting on the Hood Canal, stopping along the way at a local park to unpack a thermos of hot cider and snap a pic – only to see a sea lion fighting with seagulls right behind us. We had a good visit, sat out on their beautiful deck overlooking the Hood Canal, had a little dinner, then made the long trek back to Woodinville. Once again, great to see actual family in human form, instead of just over the phone or over a screen.

During our trek, we did see at least one heron, about ten otters, seals and sea lions, and lots of other things we don’t get as much of a chance to see in Woodinville, and mercifully, it was a little chilly out, but didn’t rain on us the whole trip! Some more pics from the trip, including the park where we saw the sea lion/seagull fight. I think if I lived where my brother does, I’d try to get out and paint that view of the water every day. It was so tranquil, except for the otters occasionally scurrying by. I was entranced by the cloud formations on the water. Anyway, a wonderful chance to see friends and family we haven’t gotten to see often enough over the past two years.

Me at Chateau Ste Michelle’s gates

Last Few Pictures of October in Seattle

So, before I go, a few more pictures of October around our neighborhood: wineries with fall decor, fairy tale mushrooms, and even more pumpkins. Those beautiful poisonous mushrooms were on the grounds of Columbia Winery, believe it or not. You never know when magical things will pop up around here. Fall can be a beautiful time here in the Northwest, if you know where to look (and don’t let the weather daunt you too much!)

A Week of Harvests (with Record Cold and Rain,) A Poem in Bellevue Literary Review, A Meditation on Boosters, Ferry Snafus and Shortages

Glenn and I at JB’s Pumpkin Farm, Redmond

A Week of Harvests (with Record Cold and Rain)

It’s been a dreary week with record cold days (with the records of cold going back to the 1800’s!) and record rain. To cheer ourselves up, we visited the local farm stands, so we had fresh corn to make salads with and sweet baby peppers and apples and squashes of all sorts. We made pear soup (don’t know if I’d recommend) and baked cranberry apple bread and generally tried to stay warm. Glenn also had a physical on Monday and his third Pfizer booster shot. By the end of the week, not just Pfizer, but all the boosters had been approved.

After our weekend plans to visit my little brother and a friend over the water were ruined by problems with the ferries, we decided to make the most of the warmer day and partial sunlight and visited a brand new but beautiful pumpkin farm near our house, JB’s Pumpkins in Redmond, and Kirkland’s Carillon Point to find roses on the water still blooming, and went grocery shopping in person (something we rarely do) at Metropolitan Market. Plentiful produce and flowers, but other shelves – frozen aisle, dry goods, paper goods – were empty. A little unnerving, like we were having a hurricane that we didn’t know about. But everyone was in a kind mood – even friendly – which seems like people responding to lowering covid levels and, of course, the nicer weather after a very dark cold week. Below is a trio of pics Glenn snapped of me frolicking in the Harvest scenery and sixty-degree day with pumpkin-colored hair and a pumpkin-hued dress. (I do not have a pumpkin-hued cane yet.)

Sylvia with Bellevue Literary review, a glass pumpkin, and a pink pillow

A New Poem, “Some Nerve: a Nocturne” in Bellevue Literary Review

Another piece of good news this week was receiving my contributor’s copy of Bellevue Literary Review’s 20th Anniversary Issue, which contained my poem about MS, “Some Nerve: A Nocturne.” This is a journal, like Image last week, that I have been sending to for over a dozen years, so the publication was definitely celebratory for me. You can see the whole issue here.

You can see a sneak peek of my poem here. (Click on it to enlarge.)

Pink mums from my yard

A Meditation on Boosters, Empty Shelves, and Ferry Troubles

So along with the wet, cold days this week, we had an onslaught of news about the vaccine boosters – which were approved, who was approved to get them, how long should we wait to get them. For Glenn, who already got his third Pfizer and his report (no big deal), it was easy. For me, it’s a little more complicated, with a bleeding disorder and a history of anaphylaxis from different kinds of shots, and since I got the J&J the first time, I’m going to have to hear from a couple of my specialists to help me decide what to do. The good news is we know I still have antibodies from my first dose of J&J, which makes it feel like less of an emergency. (None of my doctors expected me to even have antibodies this long after, so good news.) For Americans, it is a privilege to have access to third shots when people is some countries still don’t have their first one.

Wheelbarrow full of pumpkins – an image of abundance in the harvest

Since we’ve been shopping at Instacart and local farm stands, we’ve mostly missed what people have been telling us for a while: shelves are empty. Certain things that are pretty normal are in short supply, or just ungettable. My dentist cancelled my crown appointment because they couldn’t get their usual dental drugs at all. Americans are not used to doing without. The ugly scene of backed up shipping container ships is obvious if you get near Tacoma or downtown Seattle’s ports – which are strained to the point of failure. Not only that, the ferries are all understaffed, so four of the most common ferry runs – including the ones I’d used to get to my little brother or any of my Bainbridge, Kingston, or Hood Canal friends, the Bainbridge and Edmunds – were cut in half. That’s like blocking half the interstate for people who live over the water. We had been planning to visit, but Saturday morning, there were multiple hour backups on all the ferries we’d take. It was so frustrating after carefully making plans way in advance to see them ruined – but lots of people are feeling that this week, with cancelled flights, cancelled ferries, and other travel snafus. (Mercury is of course, still in Retrograde ’til tomorrow.)

Hot air balloons, October sky (rare sunshine)

It made me think about how isolated we could have been when we lived on Bainbridge or In Port Townsend – it’s the reason we don’t live there now. Because as beautiful (and more affordable) as those places were, if you can’t get to your specialist, or you want to visit friends or do some shopping off-island – it makes your quality of life less. I never liked being dependent on a drawbridge (Hood Canal) that could close at any time AND a ferry that might be unreliable even in better times. Shortages of workers – at the docks, at the ferries, at grocery stores – are visible. We don’t really go to restaurants, but I did notice a twenty-car line at our local McDonald’s for takeout and a huge “Help Wanted” poster wafting in front of the place. So the impacts of covid go beyond the deaths of people we know and love, wrecking the economy…now we’re seeing long-term problems with the supply chain, with employment, with the basics of how we used to do things. I say “used to” because clearly some things need to change. Workers are burned out and mostly underpaid. The “just-in-time” inventory models that worked pre-covid – show the dangers of running of margins of profit and supply. This really impacts people who take medicines that are hard to find – doctors in hospitals who can’t get their hands on common anti-nausea or pain drugs, and of course everyone who just can’t find their cereal/cat litter/cleanser/paper goods at the store.

On the poetry front, more literary magazines are closing for good (just heard from Foundry this week) and publishers are pushing back open submissions periods until 2022. (Oh yeah, books are also going to be in short supply – paper shortages, getting printings from overseas – all causing book supply chain problems.) And everything’s more expensive for publishers right now.

So things aren’t quite over yet. Will we need even more boosters before covid is officially considered “over?” How safe will the holidays be? Shipping container/warehouse/truck driver shortages according to the news may be backed up definitely until Christmas, and maybe for an entire year. When will I be able to get dental work or visit my brother? If you’re feeling stress and anxiety, you are probably not alone. Humans don’t operate that well with a ton of uncertainty. So I hope you’re doing your best to take care of yourselves and those around you. Get a pumpkin, take a walk on a sunny day, bake something with apples and ginger. If things are not going back to “normal” or as CNN put it  this week, “the before times” any time soon, we need to practice our deep breathing, make our plans flexible and appreciate any little joys we can find.

Book Announcement, Bad and Good Art Friends, a New Poem in Image, and a Rough Week (with Fall Colors!)

Pumpkins at McMurtrey’s Farm

A Book Announcement!!

Yes, finally, some good news! I’m happy to announce that my sixth poetry book, Fireproof, will be coming out next year with Alternating Current Press!

I’m nervous of course about setting up readings, since we still don’t know where things will be next year, but I’m hoping the pandemic will be on the wane and I can visit bookstores and see friends! I’ll post more information when I have it. It has been five years since Field Guide to the End of the World came out, so I am ready to have another book out there!

This has nothing to do with pumpkins, but I liked the cheery sunny mood of the pumpkin farm picture.

Glenn and I at the pumpkin farm

Good and Bad Art Friends

There was an article in the New York Times that had everyone buzzing, a mean-spirited article about writers being bad to each other. (If you want to read it, just google “bad art friend.” You’ll probably also get some hot takes on the article.)

But what I want to say is that in twenty years as a reviewer, volunteer, writer, editor, MFA student, and MFA instructor, I have experienced and witnessed so much kindness and generosity among writers. Maybe good art friends make for less scintillating reading, but I feel if you’re going to shine a light on a community in the art world, it should be on the wonderful, supportive, encouraging things they do for each other. I include artists and musicians in this because we all make so little money and work so hard but still what I’ve seen is artists helping each other, letting each other know about opportunities, writing blurbs, recommendations, giving each other advice…this, in my experience, has been more the norm than the opposite.

Are there mean, terrible, miserably-hearted people in the art world? Of course, like everywhere else. But I am so happy to say that most of the community supports each other. When a writer or artist gets sick, they send a care package or note; when they’re looking for work, people try to steer them towards open positions; when they’re feeling depressed about a rejection, they get encouragement; when they get good news, friends celebrate. Maybe I’m not cynical enough, or I’ve been surrounded by a lot of super-nice people by accident, but I think that good art friends are more the rule than bad art friends.

Field of sunflowers

A New Poem in Image Journal

I’m so happy to have a new poem in the latest issue 110 of Image Journal, “Rose Petals Burned”. The whole issue is terrific. I love the image they chose of the plague doctor mask at the top of the page.

Rose Petals Burned, Image Journal

Kubota Gardens, fall color

A Rough Week with Fall Colors

This week was kind of rough. I woke up sick on Sunday (lost six pounds in two days,) then woke up to identity fraud on Tuesday, which I had to report to the police and the small business association and all three credit reporting agencies, had to handle multiple problems with my cable (which provides my internet and phone too,) I also had a specialist appointment downtown and got stuck in an hour and a half of terrible traffic, missed the appointment because of the traffic, then ended up going with Glenn to a beautiful garden we never had a chance to visit before, Kubota Gardens, which is a sprawling, free Japanese garden near Renton which is open til 10 PM (a miracle in a town where everything closes early.)

We also stopped into a pumpkin farm in Redmond, called McMurtrey farm, and stopped by our favorite farm stand in Woodinville, Tonnemaker, to take in pumpkins and wildflowers.

So that’s how I deal with the bad days – I try to find the good to balance it. And sometimes that leads to new experiences that I would never have without the bad. I’m very thankful for a husband, family, and friends that try to cheer me up when I’m down. And I’m very grateful to be having a new book out soon, and for all my good art friends!

Fall Trips to the Arboretum and Open Books, Talking about Taboos: Money in Poetry, Poets and Self-Destruction, and the Importance of Community, and Submission Season

Me with fallen leaves

Fall Trips to the Arboretum and Open Books, and It’s Submission Season

I was feeling a little blue so we took advantage of one of the few non-raining afternoons this week to go out fall foliage hunting in the Seattle Arboretum (yes, they have “looking at trees!”) and also made a stop, in person, at my treasured bookstore, Open Books, and I came home with an armload of new reads, some of them inspired by the book I’ve just finished, The Equivalents.

When fall arrives here it’s easy to let the suddenly shorter days and lack of sun (we did need the rain) affect your mood, and I’m not immune to that. One thing my friends and I do to counteract a lack of motivation is give ourselves a month when we write a poem a day (um, not always great at that) and another month where we do a submission a day. It’s a reminder that summer is indeed over and writing season has begun, and always helps us actually get some work done. Those book deadlines can creep up on you if you don’t pay attention!

It is submission season, after all, that rare time when most poetry journals are open (and you’ll probably get some rejections you’ve been waiting a year for – and hopefully some acceptances as well!)

Sylvia poses with my Open Books haul plus The Equivalents

Talking About Taboos: Money in Poetry, Self-Destructive Tendencies and the Importance of Community

One thing I’ve been thinking about is something that is often taboo to talk about in the poetryworld: money. Here’s a quote from Maggie Doherty’s The Equivalents (which I finally finished) I posted on Facebook and Twitter that generated quite a bit of discussion:

Pumpkins on a fence at dusk, Woodinville

Some vehemently objected to Sexton’s quote, saying capitalism’s focus on money shouldn’t define success for poets, some talked about their own struggles with the lack of money as a marker of success, some defined success for themselves outside the realms of money. Some people rightly pointed out that in Sexton’s day there was more money and fewer poets. Some said it was a closed system – money is awarded by the privileged friends to privileged friends. It was very interesting.

I was very happy this week to see Don Mee Choi – whose work I truly have admired for years – win a MacArthur Genius grant – something that can truly alter the quality and nature of a poets’ life. Money, time, and a room of one’s own – as Virginia Woolf wrote a long time ago – go a long way towards making a writer’s life possible. But writers that are overlooked, denied grants, awards, prizes – what happens to them? How do they persevere, or even get in the public’s view? It is so easy to give up, to get lost.

Another two quotes I felt was worth putting up here was about poetry and women writer’s self-destruction and the importance of community, which is probably more true and less controversial.

From Adrienne Rich, in the book:

that the ‘room of one’s own’ is not enough; we must find community, collectivity…I believe profoundly that the woman artist, even if she can find the space and support herself in it, must not fall into the trap of working, or trying to work, in isolation. But even Woolf implies….that a female community must come into being.”

Here’s a longer quote (my hands don’t type as well as they used to…) about women writers and self-destruction from Adrienne Rich as well:

Mt Rainier at Sunset, October

So, when we think about success as poets, maybe money is a part of it, but also what we call our community, how we avoid self-destruction, how we help others. That we continue to write, to create as a kind of rebellion.

I encourage all of you to pick up The Equivalents and give it a read. It’s a fascinating account of a tiny community connected over the years, politics, art, friendship, feminism, failure, success.  I started reading it with my mom and could not put the book down. (I also got in on Audiobook so I could listen at night instead of watch tv – much better for my brain!) Sometimes it can feel hard to find a model of success we can follow without being born into money or privilege.

And remember, it’s still life during a plague, the changing seasons can be hard on people, so be extra kind to yourself. Give yourself time, seek out moments of joy where you can right now. It’s hard to build community when you can’t see each other in person, but we do have e-mail, the old-fashioned phone call, and yes, even social media.

Poems on the Rumpus and in Allium, and Trying to Bring Some Joy to Fall Days

Me with pumpkins and barn

Poems This Week in The Rumpus and Allium

This week I had some happy poetry news in the form of poems being published. The first was “Philomel at Midlife Confronts her Attacker” in The Rumpus, along with some other terrific poems in their Enough series.
Then I had two poems appear in the gorgeous new Allium, in their Fall 2021 issue, “Women on the Verge of an Atomic Breakdown” and “Spell for Conjuring a Better…: 

Follow the links to read the poems, and I will put a sneak peek at the poems at the end of the post as well.

It is officially fall. We’ve had our Harvest Moon and our Fall Equinox and Mercury is officially in retrograde. It is a little more melancholy than usual, what with our vaccinations maybe not being enough to keep us safe from every mutating versions of covid, waiting for information for those of us with crappy immune systems who didn’t get the Pfizer shot on when we can get the Boosters, and announcements of shortages (again) and mail slowdowns (again.) And the prospect of spending another set of holidays without being with family. I am trying, as you can see in the picture, to embrace the things I love about fall in the few sunny fall days the Seattle area offers. I am trying to bring as much joy as I can to life, which has been pretty depressing lately.

A field of Sunflowers in Woodinville

Trying to Bring Joy to Fall Days

So Glenn and I visited Bob’s Corn and Pumpkin Farm, we visited local farmer’s markets, we visited Molbak’s for their annual glass pumpkin display by the Tacoma Glassblowing Center. We have baskets of apples, corn, squashes of various sorts. We’re sipping hot cider like it’s going out of style.

Every bright and sunny day we’re making an effort to get outside. On the night of the Harvest Moon, we stayed outside as the moon rose, orange gold, above the trees. We don’t have many family fall rituals per se, but these activities might be as close as we get.

Hummer perched on planter

I think of the things that have kept me sane during the 21 months of pandemic: gardening, birdwatching, photography, reading and writing, reaching out to friends and family over the phone. Occasionally really good television and good books. I am reading (along with The Equivalents by Maggie Doherty, about midlife gifted artistic women in the sixties) Rita Dove’s Playlist for the Apocalypse, and watched an interview with her on PBS where she discusses her diagnoses of multiple sclerosis back in 1997. The book has a little nod to Joan Didion’s diagnosis with the same disease in one of the epigraphs at the last section. How little we see successful writers struggle in public, but might it be more helpful, more inspiring, for them to let us in on it? I certainly felt a certain reaffirmation of my love of Rita Dove’s work and feeling of kinship with her.

Anyway, here are the sneak peek poems I promised. I hope you enjoy them. The first poem, from The Rumpus, is pretty serious, and the last poem from Allium ends this blog note on a hopeful note.

Fall Arrives Early: A Failed Surgery, Visiting with my Nephew, and Applying for a Big Grant

Late multi-colored sunflowers

Fall Arrives Early in Seattle

Fall seemed to blow in early this week with colder temperatures and a bunch of thunder and wind storms. It was a bit of a rough week for us because Glenn’s vocal cord surgery was a failure, and he arrived home bruised and swollen.

The good news was the scope he had did detect some slight movement in his paralyzed vocal cord, so instead of more surgery they are recommending vocal therapy. Still the week began on a down note. I’m not used to being the caretaker – but I wasn’t a total failure at it – we had to eat soft food for a couple days while Glenn’s throat recovered and he had to ice his neck where a few needles bruised him (ouch!), but I did figure out the perfect recipe for mac and cheese without using a flour-based roux – the secret is combine cream cheese, American cheese, mozzarella, and goat cheese – and I grated veggies into it to make it healthier but still easy to swallow. Anyway, it turned out terrific! Glenn is usually the cook of the family but I guess we could survive a few days with just me cooking. (To be fair, we ate a lot of frozen yogurt and sorbet.)

A field of cosmos in Woodinville – late blooms

Applying for a Big Grant

While Glenn was recovering, I managed to apply for a Guggenheim grant, which is very difficult, demanding, and just generally harmful to my self-esteem. For instance, if you do not work for an “institution” they have approved by putting in their pre-made drop-down box in their form, it’s really hard to move forward from the first page of the application. Just as an FYI, approved institutions listed did not include Microsoft (where 100,000 people work, ahem) or the City of Redmond, where I worked as a Poet Laureate. So that’s fun.

There’s also the intimidating and humiliating fun of asking for four people to be your recommenders, and you need so much personal information about them – I mean, info I wouldn’t know about a good friend – that it’s ridiculous. You also have to write a narrative of your entire writing life – they want every grant, all your education, but make it succinct (!) and track down all your publications, but not a writing sample, which seems like it should be the most important component, right? Ah well. I don’t make the rules. It just seems to get harder every year applying for this bad boy.

Me and my little nephew (He’s 6 foot 5 now!) at Chateau Ste Michelle

Visiting with a Nephew

The good part of the week was that one of my nephews from Tennessee visited, with an eye towards possibly moving out here. I do not get to see my nieces and nephews enough, as they mainly live in faraway places like Cincinnati and Knoxville, so it was really nice to have some one-on-one time with Dustin.

Dustin and Glenn got along really well (of course Glenn couldn’t talk much, but they bonded over the grill) and my little brother also hosted him on the other side of the water so he got a chance to see all kinds of beautiful scenery. It’s a nice reminder that 1) my nephew is surprisingly not 10 anymore and 2) I really do like my family members! He seemed to really enjoy the Seattle area and we are hoping he finds a job out here so he can move out here for real. The more family here, the better, I say!  He’ll be visiting again in the spring, hopefully with his older brother, so that will be something to look forward to.

An unusual backyard visitor for us – a lovely Scrub Jay!

Considering Changes in the Air

Besides the changing temperatures and sudden deluge of rain, there’s change in the air metaphorically as well as physically. I am losing a lot of my mainstay doctors (another one quit – so much burnout in the industry, which I understand) and so I’m rethinking how I manage my health.  I’m also considering applying for more things – not just grants, but jobs and residencies that I might have thought before were too hard for me – energy and health-wise. Have I been setting myself too many boundaries, I wonder? Shutting down my own horizons? During the pandemic, I’ve had repeated dreams about traveling to Paris. I don’t know exactly what this symbolizes but I think I should pay attention since it keeps coming up. Paris could represent art, literature, a life of the mind, maybe?

Rita Dove just announced she was diagnosed in the late nineties with multiple sclerosis, which made me feel more hopeful about my own future – after all, she was the United States Poet Laureate and still does public readings. I just got ahold of her Playlist for the Apocalypse and am looking forward to reading it. Rita Dove has been one of my favorite poets since I first read “Parsley” in a Norton anthology when I was 19. She is an inspiration.

Peach flower field

I’m also reading a fascinating book about women in an experimental program for middle-aged “gifted” women in the sixties called The Equivalents by Maggie Doherty. The book focuses on how friendship, camaraderie and institutional support made a huge difference in the lives of five midlife women: Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin, Barbara Swan, Marianna Pineda, and Tillie Olsen – in the 1960s. (They called themselves “The Equivalents” because the program required a PhD or “equivalent” artistic achievement.)

What do women need to succeed as artists now? Well, things haven’t changed all that much – we still struggle to get institutional support, to get paid and respected, to get our work reviewed and in the public eye – and to make friends with women who can inspire, support, and push us forward. I know a lot of men my age with fewer books/accomplishments than me who walked into tenure-track jobs without much effort. A lot of the people doing the hiring, the grant-giving, and the publishing are still men. How can we midlife women put change in the air in the literary and art worlds? Definitely something to think about.

Anyway, change isn’t always a bad thing.

The End of the Residency, Re-Entry, and Prepping for Surgery

Sunset from the ferry, leaving the San Juan Islands behind

The End of the Residency

Like all good things, the residency at the Whiteley Center on San Juan Island had to come to an end. This picture is a view of the sunset on the ferry home form the San Juan Islands, maybe the most beautiful sunset we experienced the whole time. The last few days included multiple seal sightings – and seal pups – and a visit to an alpaca farm where I was sneezed on by an overly excited alpaca, and an incident getting stranded at the bottom of a very steep gravel hill in a wheelchair at English Camp – which was getting ready to close for the year, unbeknownst to us – and a rescue by an elderly woman who was a volunteer park ranger from East Tennessee in an ATV. Also, many hours gazing at beautiful vistas, visits to farm stands, and writing on my latest manuscript. Do I have pictures of all that? No I do not. But I do have at least two pictures of the baby seal!

Re-Entry Can Be Tough

Underwater harbor seal

Just like this beautiful harbor seal represents a creature that lives both below water and above it, we writers have to re-enter regular life after spending a week just devoted to nature and writing, going to sleep when the sun goes down, no internet or television or social media to distract you…and then coming home. Not that I hate coming home – fluffy cats and hummingbirds awaited – but it does take a little while to shake off the glamour of small-town island life. Unpacking, getting ready for Glenn’s surgery on Monday, responding to a ton of e-mails, catching up on what’s been going on in the news – well, it’s not exactly the stuff of sparkles and rainbows. But in a way, being a writer during regular life is a more important practice than doing it under special circumstances, right? Because that’s most of life.

Prepping for Surgery and Our Welcome Committee

Glenn and I at Cattle Point, American Camp

So now we’re home and shopping for soft foods and trying to clean in advance as Glenn has to have soft foods and not lift anything heavy for three days (sorry, 17-pound Shakespeare!) after the surgery on his paralyzed vocal cords. We’re so used to me being the one going through these medical things and not Glenn, so it’s up to me to be the caretaker for a few days. I’m just glad Glenn had a week completely away from work (though he still managed to mostly attend his virtual grad school) to rest and recover before the surgery. That can only help a person’s immune system, right?

The cats and hummingbirds were both very glad to see us at home, which made the re-entry to regular life a little less painful. Also, I had the pleasant surprise of having a poem appear on Verse Daily a few days ago. And my nephew from Tennessee is visiting, with an eye to moving out here eventually this coming week. So we’ll hope for Glenn’s treatment to be successful so he can get his voice back, and things to get back to relative normalcy, I mean, plague years notwithstanding. (Month 20 of the pandemic, did you guys know that? I’m hoping that we mostly reach its end by Month 24…we’ll see. I hate making predictions of this sort anymore.)