Note to anyone planning to come see me read at Ravenna Third Place Books tonight: the reading has been cancelled due to weather. The readings will be re-scheduled. Thanks!

We are having crazy, windy, stormy weather out here in the NW. I just got back from physical therapy where I watched tree branches blow by while I worked on my shoulder. Very exciting! I hope our power stays on tonight. It’s been off and on since yesterday.

Another MS rejection, this time from U of Wisconsin, who scribbled “Strong MS” on the note. That’s the second, note-scribbled rejection for my new MS. But it’s gotten lots better since September, which is when these versions of the MS were sent out. I think.

Thanks for all your well-wishes. I am feeling better. One of my good friends had a health scare this week. It made me realize how much worse it is when someone close goes through a health thing than when I do. It’s much less an exciting medical mystery, which is how I approach my own weird health problems – much more anxiety-provoking.

Sprained my shoulder, so have spent last two days in bed. Amazingly, all this down time – mostly spent flat on my back with no computer – has made me super productive in the time I can do computer stuff – I sent out two packets of poems, wrote a chapbook review, finished a writeup for Expedia, and read a bunch of magazines and books that had been sitting around. Oh, and finished up my Christmas shopping online. G’s parents bought me this cool book on Japanese consumerism, women, and culture. I read a fascinating chapter on the culture of cute and the backlash against it – which may be a backlash against working, independent women, and therefore, kawaii (or cute/vulnerable/childish)=feminist? No, I don’t think that’s right. But something.
First, check out Oliver’s interview with Kate. Good reading!
And check out this quote from a piece on Helen Vendler:
“Today Vendler seldom reviews poets under 50, since their “frames of reference,” she says, are alien to her. “They’re writing about the television cartoons they saw when they were growing up. And that’s fine. It’s as good a resource of imagery as orchards. Only I’ve seen orchards and I didn’t watch these cartoons,” she said. “So I don’t feel I’m the best reader for most of the young ones.”” (Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/books/review/Donadio.t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2&ref=books)
Cartoons replacing orchards in poetry. Yup. That’s what I’m all about, baby!
Shanna Compton’s Down Spooky is what I’d call “approachable experimental.” In some ways, you feel as if you have sitting down having a conversation with Shanna – a folksy, Southern vernacular type of poetry, but a little weirder, a little heightened language thrown in. Kickboxers, oreos, lip gloss, stripmalls all make appearances. Check out this stanza from “Guided Tour of the South:”
“No adquate map exists. Everybody
has always arrived wearing blindfolds.
See the foxshined faces in the kudzu?
Most of the vegetation has been bitten off by winter.”
Anyway, head on out and check out this book, which recently was made available again from Winnow Press.
Ooh, and in other exciting news, Brandi from Switchback Books sent out the info for our AWP reading – and it’s full of cool chicks – Mary Biddinger and Kristy Bowen are both in the lineup too!

A lovely crowded reading at the Tacoma bookstore Blu Wolf last night, where the crowd seemed very involved (despite the skate punks from the movie Dogma skating loudly back and forth during my reading right outside the window.) And then afterwards got to go out with lovely friends Lana Ayers (who just won the Snake Nation first book contest – yay Lana!) , her husband Andy (not a poet, and bravo to a guy not related/married to me who has sat through at least three Villainess readings now!) and Villainess cover artist Michaela to chat.
I also had a nice, anonymous e-mail note from someone who liked my poems in 2 River View an issue or so back when I got home.
And, in the mail a somewhat bemusing rejection for my Japanese-pop-culture/fairy tale MS that I sent into Pittsburgh Press during their open submission period in October – the handwritten words from Ed Ochester “This manuscript more interesting than most.” Not sure if that is a backhanded compliment, a good sign, or a forward-handed insult. Anyone more experienced than me want to shed light on that comment? I do feel sort of optimistic about this manuscript for some reason.
And speaking of Open Submissions, here’s a good list of university presses and thier submissions policies: http://www.poetryresourcepage.com/publishers/upresses.html
I’m enjoying reading Shanna Compton’s Down Spooky. More about that later.

Okay, check this out: The Superhero’s Guide to Small Press Publishing!! It’s mostly no-surprise advice, but customized for superheroes 🙂 I couldn’t resist. Thanks Holly Smith, whoever you are.

Come see me read tomorrow at 7 PM at the Blu Wolf in Tacoma, Washington. Open mike after!
(I hope to see my lovely Tacoma friends Jeff Walt and of course clever superheroine/book cover artist Michaela Eaves. )

Update: Thanks to Ivy for finding this cool Villainess name-finder!

Got a copy of Black Warrior Review with Aimee Nez’ chapbook – experimental-looking poems, prose poems, more challenging work. The whole issue was a lot of fun, but of course Aimee’s work was my favorite. I’m going to have to add this journal to my list of faves.
The new Writer’s Chronicle has an absolutely delightful interview with Alicia Ostriker, including questions from other celebrity poets, like Gerald Stern’s “Who is your biggest Male influence?” and Eleanor Wilner asking about Language Poetry. Read it! I have another person on my list of favorite cranky feminist poet list!
OK, I don’t like those blog question taggy things, but I was tagged by Kelli, so this time I’ll do it 😉

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was….When my mother read to me from her college poetry class book, XJ Kennedy’s Introduction to Poetry. I especially liked the ballads and the funny stuff (“Life, Friends, is Boring” and “Tomb to the Unknown Citizen.”

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and… I went to a school that had poetry recitation contests in the 5th and 6th grade. And I won two years in a row! Boo-ya! Take that, 6th graders! LOL. The poems were e.e. cummings’ “Anyone Lives in a Pretty How Town” and Louis Simpson’s “My Father in the Night Commanding No.” I still love both poems.

3. I read poetry because…. I like to think. I like to be entertained. I like to consider other points of view. I like hearing voices.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …….Louise Gluck’s “Circe” and “Siren.” Eliot’s Prufrock. HD’s Fragment 68.

5. I write poetry, but… I love television, baby! That’s right. None of that, “I threw out my television so I could meditate on nature a la Walden Pond” crap for me!

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature…..It’s condensed, exciting, exhilarating. The closest thing to junior high slow-dancing excitement you’ll find in book form.

7. I find poetry…… In Art and Artifacts. In People rather than Place. Not many poems about sunsets, but a lot of poems inspired by paintings, video installations, animé.

8. The last time I heard poetry…. Was on the radio. And the time before that was on a stage in Poulsbo, Washington.

9. I think poetry is like…A lot of things. Licking the candy wrapper. Kissing a stranger. Randomly walking into movies in a theater. Playing the “telephone” game.

Sorry about the lack of blog entries. Been sick again. Trying hard to get well in time for Christmas and the last residency.
On the plus side, being inside and sick helped me catch up on my Heroes episode re-watching. (Can’t wait for Monday’s new episode! The dialogue isn’t that well written, but the plot twists are clever and the overall pacing has been rewarding. Plus, the character Hiro has a blog where he mentioned Miyazaki. Geek out!) And I’ve been enjoying everyone else’s blogs – especially Miss Cornshake and her descriptions of Macdowell-land. Sounds dreamy.
Tempted to start decorating for Christmas tonight. I know it’s early…

Snowtruckless in Seattle
It’s the rainiest November on record here in Seattle. Last night around 4:45 I heard a weird sound against the window – it was ice and sleet hitting the glass. I called husband G to leave work early. An hour later we had two inches of snow, and then three…we decided to try to go to the grocery store, which was a huge mistake, because all the streets were like parking lots. On the news when we got home, we saw that the neighborhood we lived in when we first moved here, Issaquah, was unavailable – literally, you could not get there from here – people spent seven hours on the highway in unmoving traffic, cars and trucks littered the sides of the rode. Downtown was just as bad. Today, for the first time in the seven years I’ve lived here, Microsoft closed its campus. The roads are nothing but ice. Luckily G and I grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by ice and snow. But here, there aren’t enough salt trucks, no one knows how to drive in this weather, since it never does this, so G is staying home (Snow day!) and I will have to cancel my errands (Christmas shopping!) around town. Thank goodness for the internet!
In the Mail
Yesterday I received the Winter 2006 issue of Rattle, which has a lovely one-page review of Becoming the Villainess. Thanks, Rattle and N.K. Moni! Also, Tom from Steel Toe Books wrote to let me know that yet another teacher has adopted my book for a class! Thanks, again!
I watch TV like a boy?
I just realized recently that all of the marketing/commercials/ads I consume are for males 18-30. I am so strongly in their demographic in the shows that I watch, the music I listen to, and movies I go to, even the web sites I visit, that when I rented an art-house flick the other day I was shocked to see advertisements beyong “Girls Gone Wild,” the latest shoot-em-up XBox Game, and “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Wrath of Taj” etc. I don’t know what this says about me, or about advertisers. Do they just not care about women 18-30, or think we all spend out days watching “Desperate Housewives” and reading Redbook and don’t actually buy or do anything ourselves? Or am I so outside my demographic in my reading, television, radio and motion picture activities? Have any of you girls out there noticed this too?
Musical Zeitgeist
I’ve been working on my second book about Japanese fairy tales and popular culture, including a poem called “Crane Wife” about a crane who transforms into a human and marries the man who saves it, and recently I read about a band who did a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock(TM) album called “Crane Wife” about the very same Japanese folk tale. The band is called The Decembrists. If only I was a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock band, I would have beat them to this! It’s a decent album, but the first track is the best. Isn’t that always the way?
Dustup at Foetry: Tupelo Press and form letters
The recent trouble a-brewing over at Foetry over the fact that the entrants to Tupelo’s Open Submission period received form letters about their manuscripts instead of personalized critiuqes makes me realize how thankful I am for the few editors who, when I was first sending out the MS of Becoming the Villainess, really responded to my manuscript, when I was a finalist or semifinalist or whatever, with specific comments about the work, about whatever poems they liked or what they thought worked. Even a one-page letter makes a huge difference, even a scribbled note in colored pencil at the bottom of a form letter, it took work on the part of the editor, and yes, proves that someone out there actually read your work.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
This year I’m thankful. I was much less sick than the year before. I finished up graduate school (though officially, I won’t be graduated til January 15, I still feel that wee-hoo! feelign of being DONE!) My first book of poetry was published. (Some people didn’t hate it, and some nice folks even reviewed it! Joy.) I wrote another book of poetry, that now I have to start thinking about publishing. Thanks for my husband, who still loves to hear me read poetry after 405+ readings over twelve years. I have a wonderful set of poet friends locally, a great group of poet friends online (thanks interweb, you grand series of tubes 😉 and a loving family. Thankful for my new kitten, who kept waking me up last night by chasing his own tail in frantic circles at 1 AM, 6 AM. Thanks for the stack of books waiting for me to review, not one of which I’m not excited to read. I’m thankful today I will stay home and be quiet, making a little food for just the two of us and the cats. Thankful to everyone who reads this, everyone who encouraged me this year with kind notes and reminders. So it’s the rainest month in Seattle on record. So my student loans are coming due at the beginning of January. So? I have a lot to be thankful for.
I hope you do too! Happy day of Turkey and cranberries, damp leaves, football, loved ones, pumpkin pie with gingersnap crust. All right, I’ll stop before I sound like a holiday special…
Note: For those of you shopping for poetry lovers (or those you’d like to introduce to poetry) – here’s a customized list, prepared by Kelli A. and posted by Ivy A:
http://ivyai.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-thought-this-was-neat-idea-elegantly.html

Finally feeling better…at least mostly…and able to eat solid food again. Hooray!
Thanks to Oliver, I discovered KUOW ran a show with my poetry reading at Open Books yesterday. You can get to the podcast here…http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/podcast/beat20061120.mp3
The reading on Sunday went well, despite the sickliness – it was great hearing friend Ronda Broatch read, getting friend Jenifer Lawrence’s new book and just hanging out with the island-poet-crew. A lot of fun. I decided to read the more dark poems from Becoming the Villainess, rather than all the funny ones, and husband Glenn wants me to record them for this site. What can I say? He likes the dark side 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting a few days to read and rest and maybe even write some new poems. We’re not doing anything for Thanksgiving this year, just resting and trying to get all the way healthy. Maybe I’ll get some reviews written! I’ve got a stack of fantastic books to read. Despite the complaints year after year from the “poetry is dead” crowd, I find there is more good poetry that comes out than I have time to read.
Having a hard time holiday shopping? Think of Rebecca Loudon’s (newly Pulitzer-nominated) Radish King, or maybe a subscription to 32 Poems, 11th Muse, or American Poetry Journal. Of course, for those crazy comic-book or fairy tale fans on your list, there’s always this…

Still recovering from the seven-day-stomach-flu-of-death. No real food all week. And tomorrow afternoon I’m reading at the Jewel Box Theater in Poulsbo, WA – I hope I will be cogent and no one will even notice the dark circles under my eyes! I’m going to debut some new poems I haven’t read out loud before, all about my fox-wife (kitsune) characters.
I just recorded two poems for Pebble Lake Review, the poems are going to be in their Fall/Winter issue and they are going to post them to their Audio Project. Pebble Lake is such a cool magazine. I hadn’t read either of these poems out loud before; they’re nothing like my superhero/villainess poems, and they “play” differently somehow. It’ll be interesting to see what people think of them.
I think this week I have felt a little discouraged – two “no” responses from grants, two rejections, and an overall feeling of tiredness with the process of sending out poems or manuscripts. This may also have to do with the fever and the not-eating and constant nausea. I did, however, turn in my work for graduate school, the final assignments except for the class I have to teach and my reading and thesis defense at the January residency. Wow! I think MFA programs can kind of burn you out, for two years you try to produce and produce and read and absorb poetry. At the end, you’re sort of sick of your own work and sick of talking about poetry, a little bit. But again, maybe that’s just the flu talking.

Okay, I feel I should leave you with a more upbeat message. Next week, I promise. Til then, here’s the new kitten effectively blocking the act of printing out poems.