Poets and Artists, Biker Bars, and More Prep for the Book Release
First of all, I want to say that I have really felt blessed to spend time with interesting people in the last few days. I had a good talk with my poet-friend-in-the-Bay-area Natasha (featured in this article on a 14 Hills reading in SF Weekly, with amusing results) and then had a coffee meeting with artist Deborah Scott who talked in a fascinating way about the artistic process of her paintings (see a few of them here) which reminded me of all the ways that poets and artists work in common. We looked at Tarot cards and talked fairy tales, which was really fun.
But Natasha reminded me that she had been reading my blog and didn’t see the full title of my upcoming second book anywhere! Egads, PR disaster! She Returns to the Floating World, due out officially at the end of July, has arrived in ARC (advanced reader copy) form. Contact Kitsune Books (contact at kitsunebooks dot com) for a copy! You can pre-order it now too. I got a copy of the ARC and have become so excited about the physical artifact of the new book – I mean, I can’t imagine getting so excited about the launch of an e-book, can you? Seeing the cover, the back, the little ISBN number…yes, I’m a paper-book-geek all right.
And those of you who’d like to know what this second book is all about? Well, one of the Tarot cards I picked up while visiting with Deborah was a picture of a young woman holding a lion by the mouth. One of the interpretations of the card is about how a person interacts with their animal nature, especially a woman – the being inside us that is instinctive, fierce, blood and lust. That is one of the themes of the new book – one of my abiding interests, including how to be heroic, is the idea of the transforming woman, in between states, from fox or willow tree or seal or dragon and back into a human body again. The book has a series of poems about little brothers and big sisters, another about the frustrations and beauties of married life, and a third about the dangers to our earth, the apocalypse. It is also a book about the intersections between Japanese and American folk and pop cultures.
Beyond Ekphrastic: When Poets and Artists Collaborate
You know, we artistic types like to talk about supporting each other – musicians, visual artists, writers, theater folks – but often we get so embedded in our own little worlds that there’s very little true interaction. A lot of poets aren’t well-versed in contemporary art, and there are few artists who’ve read a lot of contemporary poetry, even though the artistic movements in both art and literature run vaguely parallel.
So I’ve considered myself lucky to get to know several local artists, including Amy Johnson, who does beautiful installation art (check out especially the images of thorns, black and resin-colored rose sculptures, etc.) They help educate me about interesting galleries and exhibits, the different medias and methods they use.
Amy and I sat down tonight and talked about truly collaborating on her next project, an installation inspired partially by Hans Christian Andersen tale The Snow Queen (about which I’ve already written a couple of poems.) We both were really excited by the possibilities of the story, the duality of the powerful villainess and one of the only “hero’s journey” tales in fairy-tale-dom where the female hero rescues her boyfriend-in-distress, the beautiful images of snow like bees, snow that takes on the shape of birds, and the dangers and beauties of accessories (the robber queen’s daughter’s knife, Gerda’s multiple fur muffs and magic boots.) So I’m writing a few poems that could be read out loud during the installation, perhaps mixed with a track of humming bee hives, for her project. I’m really excited to be trying something like this. And the best part? You’ll be able to go see the work in action in January in downtown Seattle. I’ll keep you posted!
