An Infusion, A New Review for Flare, Corona, an Upcoming Reading at Edmonds Bookshop, and Spending Time in Flower Fields

Glenn and I with bouquet at Flower Farm

Still Alive! An Infusion, Recovery Time, and a New Review of Flare, Corona

So, Monday I was healthy enough to get my antibody infusion finally, so I spent four hours with a needle in my vein, getting my temperature and blood pressure checked, and getting antibodies I can’t create put into my body. No major problems yet—still alive, as the pictures will prove—but I was knocked out for at least four days. I know some people with MS get these things once a month – as well as cancer patients, and people with immune problems like mine – but this was my first “infusion center” experience.
At least I got to finish my book (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, about two childhood friends who become game developers) and finally watch the Barbie movie, as well as a Joyride (think The Hangover, but for girls). One weird side effect was that I was fatigued but could barely sleep at all the first three days, hence all the reading and movie watching. Barbie did make me laugh but wasn’t quite as girl-power-y as I’d hoped, and I felt the overall message for viewers was somewhat sad; Barbie’s famous last scene isn’t going to college or getting to be CEO of Mattel, it’s going to the ob/gyn? I know it was meant as a joke, but I felt like it a bit deflating. The “Kens” got a lot of the laughs, and the human girls/women and the Barbies seemed so defeated. I wonder if my reaction is one of high expectation: it had gorgeous costumes, makeup, and sets, and a lot of Barbie-inside jokes and hat-tips to classic movies, but I just wanted…more? Joyride, on the other hand, was a heart-breaking/funny meditation on friendship, race and racism, work, and love/sex. It was maybe the more empowering movie? But again, I went in with no expectations, really.

Dahlias at Roozengaarde

A New Review of Flare, Corona up at The Poetry Question

I was a little bit out of it when it came out, but a brand new (and very kind) review of Flare, Corona came out at The Poetry Question. Here’s a quote:

“As someone new to Gailey’s work, I was instantly and repeatedly struck with how effective the author is at discussing some of the hardest moments of human experience with absolute grace and subtlety. Flare, Corona is an essential addition to disability poetics, a collection that offers an unashamed and deeply vulnerable window into chronic illness.”

Read the whole thing at the below link:
REVIEW: FLARE, CORONA BY JEANNINE HALL GAILEY (BOA EDITIONS) – (thepoetryquestion.com)

dahlias at Roozengaarde

An Upcoming Reading at Edmond Bookshop—in the News!—this Thursday

I’m reading from Flare, Corona with my friend Catherine Broadwall for her second book, Fulgurite, at the Edmonds Bookshop this Thursday from 6-7 PM (early!) so I hope to see some of you there. It’s part of the Edmonds Thursday night art walk event which should be fun! Some media info on it:

• Art Beat: Fiber arts, Art Walk Edmonds, poetry, wreath submissions, plus writing conference and ballet auction – My Edmonds News
• Poetry reading set for Sept. 21 in Edmonds | HeraldNet.com

Glenn and I at farm stand in La Conner, with pumpkins

Recovery Involves a Lot of Flower Gardens

On the fifth day, I was up and around enough to 1) send out a poetry submission, and 2) visit my local Woodinville flower farm, pick up a few cool black squash, and a bouquet of flowers. It was a short outing, but it felt good to walk around in the fresh air and nature.

I finally slept better that night—at least four hours, which was better than I’d done the other nights. My mental abilities definitely felt better after that.

On the sixth day, Saturday, Glenn and I decided to make a spontaneous fast trip up to La Conner, where we found a mysterious amount of corn growing everywhere—the tulip fields, the bird sanctuary? And enjoyed ourselves, stopping by a local farm stand and a quick trip to Roozengaarde tulip farm, which was having a corporate party and to our surprise, did not have its famous bulbs available yet. We still enjoyed walking around enjoying the windmill and dahlias. We didn’t really get up there early enough for most shops or a lot of the coffee shops/restaurants/etc to be open, or the Northwest Museum of Art (which is genuinely very cool) but we still had a good time before we turned around and made the hour+ trip home. I love the Skagit Valley area—the people seem genuinely friendly, and you get to see cows and horses and alpacas and lots of beautiful old barns and a lot of rural beauty. It still seems like a nice place to retire (if/when we get around to that.)

For now, just grateful to still be kicking and hopefully better off with the antibody treatment, ready to get out into the world and do a poetry reading with a friend at a cool indie bookstore this week, grateful for people reading and reviewing Flare, Corona in this busy world where poetry is so easily overlooked. Grateful for good weather, and flower farms near and far.

Taking Advantage of Sunny September Days to Do the Things We Missed All Summer: a Visit to the Japanese Garden, Open Books, Elliot Bay Books, Time at the Flower Farm

Taking Advantage of Sunny September Days to Do the Things We Missed All Summer

I was rejected from my infusion clinic on Thursday because I had some cold symptoms (negative covid test, thank goodness), but we used that day instead—since we were up early and downtown—to do something we’d missed doing all summer—visiting Seattle’s Japanese Garden. With the launch of Flare, Corona and various readings, radio things and podcasts in April and May, and family visits and illnesses and smoke over the summer, we haven’t had a lot of leisure downtime. So, we set out to use a string of sunny September days (warm, but not too warm, and no smoke!) We planned so many things: the Zoo, La Conner, visiting Roq La Rue art gallery, Open Books, and the Japanese Garden, plus visiting our local flower farm before it transforms into a pumpkin farm. Was that a realistic plan for three days? It was not. But we did have some great outdoor time in and around Seattle.

Pink dahlias at Volunteer Park in Seattle

Outings to Open Books, Elliot Bay Books, and Volunteer Park

Seattle people tend to have a bit on panic in their eyes this time of year because their FOMO is activated by the arrival of the “Big Dark.” We are probably no different, having been here so many years that we automatically go into outdoor plan overdrive on nice days.

Now, getting to Seattle from Woodinville took an hour because literally every way to get everywhere was closed due to city construction—and feel sorry for those dependent on the Bainbridge ferry, which was down for cars, bikes, and scooters for a week. Does Seattle DOT have problems? It does! Do they have a ton of tax money to fix it but somehow manage not to? Yes!

Anyway, once we got downtown, we didn’t want to waste the trip—so we hit everything at once—after navigating the construction on the main UW hospital campus (yes, also a nightmare)—we chilled out at the Japanese Garden and went to the UW district’s awesome Bulldog Newstand, which has a ton of obscure lit mags and foreign magazines of all types, and now they also have fancy ice cream.

Mandatory book selfie at Elliot Bay Books

The second downtown trip we originally wanted to hit the zoo and Roq La Rue, but because of traffic, everything was closing as we arrived, and we made the decision to only hit Open Books before they closed. We got new books by Oliver de la Paz, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, and checked out a ton more. After we stayed ’til closing time, we went a couple blocks down to Elliot Bay Books, where we picked up the new Lorrie Moore book, marveled at the terrific poetry section (where Flare, Corona was fronted at the top—squee!), bought a few more lit mags, and chatted with the friendly book salespeople about our favorite releases and theirs.

We hadn’t really visited Volunteer Park since before the pandemic, so we decided on a stroll before the long car ride back to Woodinville. We were pleasantly surprised by a new amphitheater and a live concert by a band called Space Echo as well as a new (ish?) dahlia garden. The conservatory and the Asian Art Museum—both awesome—of course also closed super early, but we had a great time and felt a lot of serendipity with the flowers and music.

We also enjoyed “magic hour” at the JB Family Grower’s Flower Farm, where the lavender was mostly done blooming, but the sunflowers, zinnias, and dahlias were still putting on a great show. In two weeks, the farm transforms to a corn maze and pumpkin farm, so we’ll probably spend the remaining nice fall days hanging out there. Do we still want to make it to visit the red pandas at Woodland Park Zoo, see the art at Roq la Rue, and see La Conner as it turns to fall? Yes! But maybe we shouldn’t have expected to do it all in three days. Serendipity made each trip we made downtown unique and enjoyable, despite getting postponed at the hospital infusion center (now set for Monday?) and the traffic. Does the MS affect me in the amount I can do in a day? It does. Was it discouraging and frustrating to navigate the UW medical system between different standards doctors have and the infusion center? Yes. Am I exhausted now? Yes! Did I get much poetry (writing, submitting, writing blurbs) done? Well, I judged one poetry contest, so it wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t as much as I would have done had it been cold and rainy. But we have plenty of that kind of weather ahead of us!

So I have the infusion scheduled for tomorrow (for now – unless they reject me again.) I know I won’t be up to much after the infusion so it’s good to make some good memories when I can. I hope you have some wonderful weather and time to get outside in your town and let some serendipity happen!

A Supermoon, a Surgery, and One Perfect Fall Day, Plus the Importance of Joy and Healing

Cloudy Seatle Blue Supermoon

A Supermoon, A Surgery…

So, the day of the supermoon, Glenn had a right-hand surgery, which we’d hoped would be simple but ended up being pretty complicated (read: long, expensive, involving IV antibiotics, stitches, a biopsy, etc.) He is on his way to healing now but for four days he was pretty incapacitated—and that meant I was trying to fill in the gaps—cat and Glenn caretaking, making sure we had food to eat (not much of a cook here, in case you didn’t know), and four nights of barely any sleep for me. The good news is, there was no cancer, he seems to be feeling much better. It’ll be a while before his hand is back to normal, but at least it seems to be on its way.

After four pretty miserable days, we decided to have a day off (after Glenn’s post-surgical check-in and bandage removal, of course) and devote ourselves to just doing fun things.

Lavender Bicycle at the Lavender Farm

One Perfect Fall Day—and the Importance of Joy to Healing

I have a friend who’s had pretty serious cancer for about seven years. She told me the secret of her longevity – to treat her body as a friend, to live with joy, to give her body a reason to live and to heal. That struck me as very profound and has stayed with me.

Since Glenn was recovering and I have a pretty tough week ahead (meeting with immunologist, then getting an immunology infusion at the downtown hospital), we decided to take advantage of the one day without smoke or rain—a perfect 74°-degree day, a little haze but no smoke and a wonderful breeze.

At Molbaks with Halloween display

So we started our perfect fall day and went to our local garden center, Molbaks, to check out their Halloween decorations (you can count on them having displays up by September 1) to get our fall feels, and then a trip to our favorite local lavender (soon to be pumpkin) farm, where we walked through the sunflowers, listening to the bees and the finches, felt the breeze, got some fresh air and easy exercise. We even gathered some flowers to bring home and for some time, just existed—no deadlines, nothing to do and no place to be—until it was almost sunset. I could have easily fallen asleep in the grass out there.

We came home, watched some of the Harry Potter marathon on SyFy with hot cider, and finally got a good night’s sleep. I consider all of this a type of medicine—different than that in Glenn’s IV or my infusion—a way to remind ourselves of the gentleness and beauty of life, not just the grind and the chores and the pain and struggles. There are enough of those every day—sometimes you have to turn your attention to the good.

Me in my happy place, with sunflowers

Today is rainy and cool, and we tidied the house, I organized and put away my summer clothes, and we started to really prepare for fall. We bought the last doughnut peaches for cake and made barbequed chicken and cornbread with the last good corn. I lit a couple of pumpkin coffee candles. We paid attention to the cats, who felt they had been very neglected the last few days.

I did a few submissions this week in a bit of a daze, because submission windows can be short and demanding, even when life is chaos. I also tried to catch up a bit with my reading—even picking up a few new books to start (ambitious, I know, but fall seems like a good time to acquire new books—especially important when you’re spending a long time at the hospital with a needle in your arm).

As the seasons transition, a few of my friends noted the stress of the change, the return to different rhythms. In Seattle, we pretty much say goodbye to the sun and hello the “the long dark” of the next nine months. I’m hoping to catch a few good days to visit the pumpkin farms, to pick the Pink Lady apples from the tree in my front yard I planted at the beginning of the pandemic, and even a few figs from the fig tree I planted two years ago. Fruit from new trees is always a good sign—last year we got neither apples nor figs—so I hope my trees will stay healthy until next spring.

Wishing you a kind and gentle transition.

New Review of Flare, Corona in F(r)iction, Still the Smoke and Heat, Poetry World Losses, A Blue Supermoon Coming…So Look Out (or Up)

Bench in Zinnias, at the Woodinville JB Growers Lavender Farm

A New Review of Flare, Corona is Up at F(r)iction

Very happy to have a new review of Flare, Corona at F(r)iction by JP Legarte. I can’t stress enough how grateful I am for every purchase, every review, of this new book. Thank you to those who teach any of my books and my poems. Thank you to my friends who keep encouraging me. Thanks to those who invite me to read and to visit classes. It is so easy to feel discouraged and so hard to believe in your own work. So thank you!

Here it is:

A Review of Flare, Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey – F(r)iction (frictionlit.org)

And here’s a screen cap with a sneak peek.

Poetry World Losses

I was very sad to hear about the death of poet Maureen Seaton, who was a tremendously encouraging and supportive writer as well as a really fun writer—I’ve been reading her for years, but it is her steady kindness to others that I saw in all the mentions of her in social media. I wonder—does our work matter more, or how we treat people along the way? Either way, if you haven’t picked up anything by Maureen yet, you should. Ed Ochester, the editor of 5 AM and University of Pittsburgh Press for a long time, also passed away—another poet who was known for kind editorial notes and support for writers. Yes, he sent me some of those notes. We feel real sorrow—not just an abstract sense of loss—when these kinds of people pass away. The poetry world can be cold and indifferent, but these were people who made it less so.  It’s hard to say this without sounding like a cliche, but they were people who reminded me to be not just a better poet, but a better person, and I will miss them. I want to remember to be kind, how important it is to write that note, or that blurb, or that appreciation or review.

Still in Heat and Smoke—and a Blue Supermoon is Coming, So Look Out (or Up!)

I’ve been house-bound for a couple of days with almost 90° heat (hard on MS) and horrible smoke (hard on asthmatics) outside. The week ahead contains a small surgery for Glenn and the infusion scheduled for me, along with more fun things like my book club at J. Bookwalter’s winery on Wednesday night to discuss the novel When Women Were Dragons.

I’ve been unusually tired—falling asleep when I try to read or watch a movie, napping a lot—and haven’t been able to get enough done (whatever “enough” us). And a rare Blue Supermoon—the last for fourteen years—is coming on August 30th. I feel a little bit of anxiety (or nervous premonition?) You should definitely look up at the sky Wednesday night either way. It will probably rain here—I mean, we could use the rain, honestly, but I hate to miss seeing the moon (no matter what its portents).

Anyway, here is wishing you health, happiness, and peace for the upcoming week. May September (and the Supermoon) be kinder to all of us.

Writing from Inside the Smoke: with a Brief Respite in a Flower Farm and Is It Fall Yet (September Readings and More)

Glenn and I with snapdragons and sunflowers, before smoke

Writing from Inside the Smoke

Well, writing this missive from inside a smoke attack so bad that we have the worst air quality in the world right now. Just two days ago, it finally cooled off from the nineties to a more pleasant 75, and I felt good enough to make a brief trip out to our local Woodinville Flower Farm, which will soon—Sept 23—become a pumpkin farm too! (This is JB Growers Lavender and Pumpkin Farm, right next to Chateau Ste. Michelle, in case you want to visit yourself.)

I’m still slowly recovering and am due into the hospital for an antibody infusion Sept 1, so think good thoughts for me. These things do have risks, but they could help me get well faster and stay well longer. I’m nervous about it, but hopeful it will help. My immune system has apparently been deteriorating as I’ve aged, according to some recent tests, so it could be I’ll need infusions of antibodies on a regular basis sometime soon. I did not win the lottery in terms of physical bodies (bleeding disorder, immune deficiency, MS, Ehlers-Danlos, one kidney) but don’t worry; I have a lot of life force left.

Sunflowers, zinnias

Brief Respite in a Flower Farm

We came home, having spent time with finches singing and coming home with handfuls of corn and flowers, and decided to stay in for a couple of days while the smoke came in. It might be gone as soon as tomorrow. We’re also keeping a close eye on our friends in California which is facing a hurricane and flooding, so soon after the disaster hurricane/fire in Maui. We are hoping everyone stays safe.

So when the weather isn’t trying to kill us, we’ve got to get out and try to enjoy it. My second favorite season, fall, is approaching fast: Facebook is full of back-to-school pics, and I’m ready to shop for office supplies and cardigans—rituals I continue even without the school year structure.

Glenn and I with our hands full of flowers

Is It Fall Yet? And Doing Readings, Writing, Submitting, and Book Promotion…

I’m waiting for fall, and I need to catch up with my reading, writing, and submitting.

I’ve got a couple of September readings coming up: at Edmonds Bookshop with Catherine Broadwall on September 21 (more info here). And a Zoom reading with Red-Headed Stepchild Literary Magazine on September 28th (more info here.) I hope to see a few of you – I need to start promoting Flare, Corona again now that summer’s almost over. I feel like the book has sort of dropped off the radar a bit so if you haven’t picked it up yet, or you haven’t yet reviewed it anywhere, I’d really appreciate it.

My attack on my TBR pile hasn’t exactly been exemplary, but I finally finished Margaret Atwood’s Old Babes in the Woods—a mostly elegiac series of short stories with brief stints of hilarity (“Patient Griselda”, “My Evil Mother”) or horror (“Clamshells”). Definitely worth picking up if you’re an Atwood fan.

Zinnias

As far as submitting, I need to make inroads. I haven’t been writing much this month, but I have plenty of poems that aren’t out anywhere, which isn’t usually the case with me. So, trying to balance book promotion, writing, submitting new work, reading books—it can be a lot! Getting sick for most of August wasn’t in my plans, and it’s slowed me down, so hopefully I can catch up with writing and submitting next month. Wish me luck—with both the health and with the writing stuff! And wishing you all a safe and healthy last week of August.

More Hospital Visits (and Bobcat Visits), a PR for Poets Talk with Kelli Agodon, Glenn Graduates, and More

Red Sunflower from our garden

A Bit of a Chaotic Week—Hospital Visits, Bobcat Visits, Glenn Graduates, and Kelli and I Talk PR for Poets

Yes, it’s been a chaotic week, which included a rush to the hospital after a bad reaction to a new antibiotic, a bobcat night visit, Glenn’s graduation from Pepperdine’s MSBA program in Data Science, and a Zoom conversation with Kelli Russell Agodon about PR for poets, including talk about doing it with limited funds, with chronic illness and disability, and getting over the ick factor.

In the meantime, we’re in the middle of another hot streak—it was 90 when Kelli and I were talking PR—and our garden is giving us a last showing of dahlias and sunflowers, including the one in the picture above.

And you didn’t think I wouldn’t give you a video of the bobcat video—this was about four in the morning, the night of my ER trip. What do bobcat visitors represent, do you think?

More Thoughts on Writing and Survival from a Fainting Couch

Charlotte on the new fainting couch

This new piece of furniture—a gift from Glenn for our anniversary – could not have felt more apropos than this week, when I was barely able to get out of bed. Charlotte, of course, has made herself quite at home on it as well.

The last two weeks have made me contemplate, once again, the challenges of being a writer with my particular health challenges. This week a doctor told me my immune system was worse than her bone marrow transplant patients, and that I might need regular immunoglobulin infusions, as well as monoclonal antibodies for my current illness to be able to fight it off. The doctors were indeed worried I might not make it this last two weeks, which is always scary. I wish this week (and the last) could have been about gardening and writing, but instead it was about fighting to stay alive, with infusions of nausea meds and antibiotics and saline—not ideal. At 50 I find I have more fight in me to stick around than I did even a few years ago, when I was (incorrectly) diagnosed with terminal liver cancer (tumors still around but not dead yet.) Back then I thought, I’ve had a good life, I’ve accomplished enough—this time around I thought, I’ve still got so much to do! Maybe that has to do with the new book manuscript I’ve been working on, the new friends I’ve been making, the chances I’ve been taking, the steps I’ve been making to embrace life even as the pandemic has a minisurge and I fight to stave off even fairly normal germs. I am not ready to go yet. Writing seems like one way of making a survival stance, doesn’t it, a way to holding on, of marking down your name, of saying you were here. I’ve written eight books – six poetry, two non-fiction, and I’m not done yet. Will any of them survive a hundred years, or even outlive me? I’m not sure yet. Sorry for the more morbid bit of thought here—I tried to keep the tone light during my PR for Poets talk earlier today, but these kinds of thoughts kept slipping into my mind. Why, after all, do we promote our books? Yes, to honor the work, to honor the publisher’s work, but also, because we hope to leave something that lasts.

Supermoons and August Flowers, Hospital Trips, Taylor Swift and Flare Corona on Instagram Together, and A Topsy Turvy Week

Supermoons can be tricksters

August Supermoons, Things Go Topsy Turvy

This week started with the first of two August Supermoons, two things that bode ill for me—August and Supermoons. On the nights of supermoons, I have passed out, been diagnosed with MS, been in the hospital…and August is my worst month for MS symptoms. I looked at my Facebook memories over the past ten years for the first week of August, and in seven out of ten I’ve been in the ER for something. And I’m afraid this week was no different.

But it started out with good things: seeing August flowers, some house projects we finally got around to, and the news that Taylor Swift as Books (the Instagram account) was going to feature Flare, Corona. I started out with good intentions for the August Sealey Challenge.

August blooms—dahlias in Woodinville

Blooms of August, Cats in Boxes, and Sealey Challenge Stacks

August can be a beautiful month—my own garden suddenly looks like a real garden—lilacs, sweet peas, dahlias, roses, and hydrangeas all in bloom at once! I’ve been gathering little bouquets the last few weeks. We also spied a gorgeous dahlia display in Woodinville and water lilies in Kirkland. Our cats enjoyed our home improvement projects—especially the chance to sit in boxes. I got out my stack of poetry books for the Sealey book-a-day challenge (which I may not succeed at, but oh well, intentions!)

But then…I started to feel sick…

Taylor Swift as Books and Hospital Trips

The good news for this week was a new kind of thing for me—Instagram book fame, LOL! The Instagram account Taylor Swift as Books—which pairs book covers with Taylor Swift looks and funny hashtags—put my book, Flare, Corona, up on Thursday!

But before I had time to celebrate, something was going very wrong with me, and I ended up in the hospital with a pretty bad infection. I’m back at home now, on heavy antibiotics, but several days were just a blur. I did have two doctors get ahold of me on the weekend (!!) to make sure I didn’t die, which was nice. I have an immune deficiency, and sometimes infections hit me harder than they should, and are harder to shake, and that was the case this week. But at least I got a nice pint of saline, some Zofran, blood work and antibiotics—and the female ER doc also had MS, which I thought was amazing (I rarely meet doctors with MS, even as an MS patient). Hopefully, I’ll be on the mend soon—wish me luck!

Getting Back Into Routines, Finding Joy in Writing and Talking Books, and Looking Forward to Fall (Readings?)

Three Hall Siblings in One Space/Time: Mike, Chuck, and Me (missing oldest brother Don)

Getting Back into Routines

My older brother and his family flew home Tuesday morning, and after a great visit, Glenn and I are settling back into our slower, two-person routines—watching birds and butterflies, giving our two cats and the garden attention, going to book club, and a staggering amount of laundry and grocery shopping to catch up on.

I am also catching up on e-mail and other correspondence, so if you’re missing something from me, please ping me and let me know. It is possible things have slipped through the cracks! As covid levels are ticking back up, I’m extremely grateful to have been able to visit with my parents and my older brother this year after so many years of not seeing each other. Zoom and phone calls are not the real thing, though they are better than nothing.

Tiger Swallowtail butterfly on pink verbena in my garden

Finding Joy in Just Writing and Talking Books

After book club on Wednesday where we discussed the poetry book Our Dark Academia (in case you’re following along with the book club) among other things, I remember feeling a moment thinking about taking joy in talking about books and just writing for fun, not worrying about publishing or marketing or any of that stuff.

I think I got exhausted from the first few months of my sixth book coming out, plus AWP and all that accompanies that, and it was nice to remember that appreciating poetry is kind of its own reward, and that there are simple things that give us joy: visiting with family and friends, walking through a field of lavender, watching butterflies, and writing poetry among them.  I’m not particularly good at slowing down and having moments of peace and joy, I actually had a book as a teen called When I Relax I Feel Guilty, so this week was a bit of a revelation. Then I wrote two poems (I hadn’t written in a little while) and didn’t worry about updating any spreadsheets or submitting or rejection—I just enjoyed writing them.

Looking Forward to Fall (Readings?)

Having taken a brief break from promoting the book (because summertime in Seattle—the whole Pacific Northwest is a rough time for readings unless you’re part of a conference or an MFA residency because everyone just wants to be outside), I am now planning and thinking about the fall—doing more readings for Flare, Corona, doing a “PR for Poets” talk and Q & A with Kelli Agodon over Zoom for her Two Sylvias Daily Muse subscribers. (Here is a link to subscribe—it costs money, but there are free Zoom talks included—Kelli did a poetry generating workshop last month and she’s got speakers like Maggie Smith lined up and a cool newsletter among other things.) I may even run an independent class (I’ve been asked to do it—I just need to figure out what to teach and how to do it online in the best way). It turns out I really like the human connection aspect of doing readings in person again, and I’m actually looking forward to it. Plus, autumn is my best time in terms of energy—the air’s a little colder, the long summer days shorten a little, my favorite foods are in season—and it also seems to be a time when people want to read more and buy books, maybe? Anyway, look for more information on upcoming events coming soon!

I also want to plan to celebrate some things—including Glenn’s graduation with his master’s degree, which he got entirely during the pandemic at Pepperdine University—because I’m realizing it’s important to celebrate things, to take time to feel joy, to do things that make you feel happy. It’s also important to prioritize spending time with people you love. It’s all about balance—the world may pressure us to prioritize everything but resting, catching up with friends, celebrating, wandering through proverbial lavender fields (or actual ones)—but in order to build mental and physical health, creative energy, and a semblance of happiness, we need to prioritize them. Giving yourself time to dream, or do a puzzle, or redo your bookshelves, or read a book you’ve been wanting to get to “just for fun.”  As we head into August, which can be an anxiety-provoking month, the heat, the back-to-school expectations, the knowledge that summer is almost at an end—take a day off from work, or just a weekend morning, to do whatever brings you joy—and plan something you love for September, so you have more to look forward to.

A New Review in Colorado Review for Flare, Corona, A Visit from My Older Brother and Family, and Guest Blog Post by Kelli and I at the Poetry Department Blog on Making Your Own Residency

Me with sunflowers

A New Review of Flare, Corona in Colorado Review

I talked about feeling a little discouraged by the lack of reviews of Flare, Corona recently so I was very happy to see this review during this busy week! Thank you to Colorado Review and Carrie Ann South for this wonderful new review of Flare, Corona!  

Here’s an excerpt:
The discussion was inspirational, but make no mistake, Gailey’s work is not a saccharine survival story full of platitudes. She breaks down the false narratives we tell ourselves to get through the day in “At the End of Two Years of the Plague, You are Tired of the Word Resilience”: “…Resilience: you hear “Silence, slice, siren.”

The speaker points out the irony in companies touting “safety” during one of the most unsafe periods of our collective lives. Gaily approaches language with a tongue-in-cheek playfulness, taking an overused word like “resilience” and rearranging the letters into darker, perhaps more truthful, words. The poem argues that this kind of cheery language is meaningless, or at least filled with underlying tension…

…There’s something comforting in Gailey’s insistence that we’re powerless against forces of nature. Maps, Geiger counters, storm trackers, MRIs, and other tools intended to predict catastrophes recur throughout the collection….

At the same time, there’s an appreciation for nature’s beauty and the sheer miracle of our brief existence. The poems ask, is it better to know death is imminent or to be oblivious? “How to Survive” points out the futility of trying to prepare for death. It reads like a satirical instruction manual. The suggestions to avoid a plague (“Be alone, in the desert”) or a tsunami (“Be uphill”) reiterate the circumstantial nature of our existence. The real advice? “Sing your song, put the note in a bottle, be remembered, / because someday soon, we will all be gone.” No, this isn’t a depressing thought, it’s a truth, a relief, a peaceful acceptance. That’s the paradox in Gailey’s writing.”

Anyway, read the whole thing – it’s very well-written and I even cried a little when I read it.

Visiting with my Older Brother and His Family from Ohio

My older brother Chuck—a great older brother, who bought me my first record albums, introduced me to MST3K, and taught me how to make a cheeseburger—has not been able to come out to visit for a long time, and my health problems and then the pandemic kept me from being able to travel back to Ohio. So, a visit with him, his wife, and three children (who I’d never met) was overdue!

I took them to our lavender farm (a hit with the kids!), the Microsoft Museum (hit with the two nephews – video games!), and the Seattle Aquarium and Ivars (tried to talk them into the Ferris Wheel and various other things, but they just wanted to go back and swim at their resort pool LOL). It was a good visit—I can remember how awkward it was a kid visiting relatives who 1. had no kids and 2. had disabilities, so I tried to make it as fun as possible (within the limitations I have). And it seemed fine. It was great having time to catch up talking in person to my brother who I’m close to and miss all the time (thanks, Disney Plus, for entertaining the kids LOL).

Me with Moon Jellies at Seattle Aquarium

It was really the first time I’d spent any time at all around kids since the pandemic began—besides a short visit with my college roommate’s very well-behaved daughter at a poetry reading—so that was interesting and anxiety-provoking. Glenn’s cooking was a big hit even with the very picky children, and the cats were a hit too (although they were not excited in reciprocity—they are only used to adult visitors). I really enjoyed introducing the kids to things I loved around town—they loved feeding fries to seagulls at Ivar’s, for instance, and had unexpected enthusiasm for the lavender farm and its various flowers. (They even went back without us one morning!) They loved going to a local park. My niece loved my pink typewriter, and I taught her how to use it (though an antique, it doesn’t work flawlessly—much like myself, LOL!) This was my second big family visit in the almost-but-not-quite-post-pandemic this year—my parents came out for my birthday—and I was grateful to have the time with them.

With cocktails after a long day and night of manuscript editing

Guest Blog Post on Making Your Own Mini-Writing Residency with Kelli Russell Agodon on the Poetry Department Blog

Kelli and I have a three-part account of making your own mini-writing residency (plus takeaways from our experience) up at the Poetry Department Blog…aka The Boynton Blog. If you’re interested in the inside story in how we made a weekend retreat work for us as a way to work on our upcoming manuscripts, strengthen our friendship and increase our focus on our writing lives.

• Making Your Own Writing Retreat, part one
• Making Your Own Writing Retreat, part two
• Making Your Own Writing Retreat, part three

Wishing you a wonderful week! How can it almost be August? This summer has flown…

Anniversaries, Birthdays, Heatwaves, and Thoughts on Asteroid City and the Poetry World

Glenn and I at the lavender farm on our anniversary

Anniversaries, Birthdays, Heatwaves, and Asteroid City

Since my last blog post, I’ve celebrated my 29th wedding anniversary, my husband’s birthday, there’s been a crazy heatwave, I had my doubts about poetry, caught a summer virus (not covid, no worries, just a regular childhood virus my immune system isn’t strong enough to fight off), and watched Wes Anderson’s newest movie, Asteroid City.

For our anniversary, we accidentally stopped in for a Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) mini-concert at Chateau Ste Michelle, stayed out late with the first sunflowers in Woodinville at the Lavender Farm, and Glenn made a wonderful dinner of duck with cherry sauce and black forest cake for dessert. (We looked at reservations, but the menus weren’t very allergy friendly, and the prices have gone way up since we last went out—pandemic inflation maybe?) I was a little under the weather on Glenn’s actual birthday, so my little brother Mike took him out axe-throwing (yes, it’s a thing) and then out to dinner, which they really enjoyed. (Glenn said I’d enjoy the axe throwing, but my MS and joint problems said probably not, LOL.)

First Sunflowers in Woodinville

First Sunflowers, Heat Waves, and Asteroid City (Thoughts on Film and Poetry)

My weird summer virus coincides, weirdly, with a huge heat wave—temps of 90 (and humidity levels at 30) meant an almost desert-like feeling to Seattle in the last couple of days. We were watering the hummingbirds, two bird baths and fountains, our poor flowers and baby trees – and ourselves. We have air conditioning, but it struggles to catch up with temps over 80. A common Seattleite’s summer retreat to a cooler area, Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast, had to close today because a mountain lion went to the beach to cool down!

Thirsty goldfinch at our bird fountain

On my sick days, I had a chance to catch up on movies—and I watched Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret (which was cute, and very true to the book, except for I remember the mother worked in the book?) and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which felt like a mashup of many of my own poetic obsessions—apocalypse, the Cold War era’s paranoia, mistrust of the government, aliens, nuclear testing anxiety, quarantine and its reverberations, and of course, death, Shakespeare, and witches. Some of my friends really did not like this movie, which highlights artificiality in a sort of odd black and white narrated Rod Serling juxtaposed with a tableau of the American West in color and admittedly does not have a linear plot. But I loved it—and more than that, it was the first movie I’ve seen that made me want to make a movie. (I have a friend with a fancy Ivy League degree in film and I suddenly had the urge to ask to borrow all her books from the program.) This film almost felt like a visual poem—a pastiche of Wasteland-like fragments. The other thing I noticed was influences from my generation—from Futurama episodes (I recommend watching “The Series Has Landed” and “Roswell That Ends Well” for shot-to-shot comparisons) and MST3K fifties apocalypse anxiety films. Wes is four years older than me, so we probably watched and read a lot of the same things growing up. I loved Moonlight Kingdom, but I strongly identified with this film—it’s practically set in my childhood home of Oak Ridge with its massive government buildings and kooky genius children in nearby schools, called “Atomic City.”

It’s weird because this week I had a little bit of poetry-life anxiety (ie I applied to jobs that pay money again and felt my book wasn’t getting enough reviews and I wasn’t sure what else to do to promote it and that made me feel like a failure, tbh) so it was good to focus on another art form—especially since I’ve also been reading Tom Hanks’ book on movie making magic (Tom Hanks was also terrific in Asteroid City, and he should keep the silver hair from the movie.) And of course, the writer strike and actor strike are very much in mind. What would it be like to be a writer and director in the Hollywood world right now? I’m looking forward to two new movies coming out too—Barbie and Oppenheimer (which as you probably know, in my mind I combined as “Barbie as Nuclear Scientist: I am Become Death.” It’s hard to break new ground and be unique in the world of movies—it’s an art form that’s been around for about 100 years, but it feels like so many movies are sequels or remakes of earlier, better things, as if people have run out of ideas in that amount of time—and all these movies are sort of the opposite of that (Barbie could be a corporate movie, but with Greta Gertwig in charge, I doubt it). And poetry can be the same—it sometimes feels like the same ten people get all the awards and attention and just get rotated, and they come from the same neighborhoods and fancy colleges and sometimes all their poetry can feel the same. It’s hard to stand out in the poetry world! It’s hard to be unique. My favorite poetry books are quirky and off-the-wall and very much reflect the poet’s personalities—and I guess if my book finds its audience eventually, that’s the most important thing, not if it gets reviewed in the “cool” places or wins the “cool” prizes (though of course those things would be nice). With Flare, Corona, in particular, the experiences of being diagnosed (wrongly) with terminal liver cancer and then (correctly) with multiple sclerosis, with the science and comic book and humor and solar weather spins that I brought, I hope sharing it helps people going through some of the same things, even though that sounds corny! Anyway, I’ll be positively distracted this week because my older brother, his wife and kids are coming out to visit – the first time I’ve seen him in over six years, and I’ll be meeting the kids for the first time. So that’s exciting.

Stay cool as the whole country seems to be encountering a heat wave this upcoming week, and take advantage of any summer lulls to see movies you have been wanting to see or read books on your to-be-read stacks. You never know where inspiration might hit.