Video from the Port Townsend Writers Conference
Dear readers, while we are waiting in the horrific long ferry line – the bane of sunny Sunday people trying to get from one side of the water to another – enjoy this video footage of me reading at the Port Townsend Writers Conference. My intro by Dorianne, and the first few lines of the first poem were cut off by my adorable but inexperienced cameraman, husband G. Also, the podium is so big you can hardly see me behind it. I believe it was made for bigger poets than the likes of me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSvpKfdURGA
(The poems are: “Postcard from the Suburbs of Seattle to the Suburbs of Tokyo,” “My Little Brother Learns Japanese,” “The Husband Tries to Write to the Disappearing Wife,” “Anime Girl Delays Adulthood,” and, from my first book, “Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon.”)
Reading tonight at the Port Townsend Writers Conference
The sun is out once more and the Northwest is ablaze with sunshine, as though we had been swimming through murky depths of cloud for weeks.
Tonight is the final night of the Port Townsend Writers Conference, and the night of my reading with my personal literary heroine, Dorianne Laux. I hope it goes well. I hope people are still awake on the last night of the conference. This is really the first official outing of She Returns to the Floating World, so I hope I perform respectably. Wish me luck! Will report back tomorrow…probably while waiting in the ferry line to come home…
Port Townsend Writers Conference and a new review of Torn
I’m writing you this note from chilled, damp, but still beautiful Port Townsend. I snuck up yesterday to see Dorianne Laux talk about music and language and Erin Belieu read with Cate Marvin. That Cate! That’s someone you watch read and wish “I wish I was more like that when I read.” Then I went and met some new friends that I had only known by e-mail before, and that was fun. Saw lots of old friends too. I told Glenn I probably knew 80% of the crowd in the audience last night, from someplace.
We saw heron and many, many deer. The whole place was in a cloud, and I think the temp topped out at 59 degrees. Must remember to bring warmer clothes this weekend.
My new Rumpus review of C. Dale Young’s third book, Torn, is up! And I think it’s much better than that New Yorker review. But tell me what you think!
https://therumpus.net/2011/07/even-more-taboo-than-love/
I’m reading on Saturday with Dorianne and feel excited but nervous. I bet everyone will be exhausted by Saturday night. People are already starting to get the midweek “stare of doom.” Wish me luck!
Late July Happenings
I had so much to do the last week – we celebrated our 17th anniversary, Glenn turned 40, and of course, still organizing readings and such for my new book, She Returns to the Floating World. (Have you gotten your copy yet? I still have a few copies left if you want a signed copy…) New readings I’m putting together include the Richard Hugo House’s Cheap Wine and Poetry Series this fall and the new Northwest Bookfest in October. Excitement! The fall is filling up!
Remember to check www.versedaily.com tomorrow to see a poem from my new book! (Link to the poem will go live tomorrow…so excited to see which one it is! Thanks Verse Daily guys! – Here it is, “Advice Given to Me Before My Wedding”)
I’m going up to visit the Port Townsend Writers Conference this week as well, culminating in a little reading on Saturday night, the 23rd, at 7:30, with none other than my literary heroine Dorianne Laux. A dream indeed! And I am looking forward to catching up with lots of friends – after all, I used to live up there! (And here’s a list of readings in the local paper the Port Townsend Leader, including mine!)
Hope you’ve been enjoying the Summer Interview series feature on the blog! So far, we’ve featured Roland Kelts on Japanese literature, novelist Helen Phillips, Kelli Russell Agodon, Susan Rich, Diane K. Martin, Marie Gauthier, Collin Kelly on social media, Elizabeth Austen on radio interviews. Let me know in the comments if there’s someone you’d love to see interviewed!
I’m going to the rheumatologist down at UW today so if I have enough energy after, we’re going to go see the new Harry Potter (well, if it’s not sold out…lots of kids in capes around here!) I strongly believe in balancing time spent in doctor’s offices with time spent doing something more pleasant. There is so much to be thankful for, this gloomy rain-cloud-y Seattle morning…I’m thankful for my friends, for my husband, that my ankles and TMJ are slowly improving, that my allergy situation seems more stable…that I’m back in a place where I can visit doctors without worrying about crazy unexpected bills (our insurance didn’t transfer well to California…) and that I’m looking forward, in a hopeful way. I’m hoping for good things for this little new book of mine, for my two as-yet-unpublished manuscripts of poetry, for stable health, for dreams of maybe writing a little creative prose, for more work opportunities if if if the economy improves…
The last day of the Port Townsend writer’s conference, and only a little the worse for wear…
The teaching part went pretty well, I sold some books, bought some books, and went to a lot of readings and classes in seven days. The best part of the conference was catching up with friends and getting a few inspirations to write. The weather was pretty if a little chilly (highs in the sixties) and I saw my baby otters again down on the Fort Warden beach. Also, yesterday we had two beserk white kittens on our lawn (which I had to carry back to their home – is carrying kittens not the best chore ever?) and a mother deer and two fawns in the back yard all morning. Apparently July is baby animal month here!
Just to show how small the poetry world is, ran into a friend of Charles Jensen at the literary magazine panel (Stephanie, the editor of Blood Orange review, was talking about how great Charles and LocusPoint were.) The other editor I really enjoyed meeting was Willow Springs editor Sam Ligon. All the Willow Springs folks have been wonderful to deal with, actually. We had a very good discussion about lit mag distribution and then about hybrid forms (he was teaching a class on the short-short story at the same time I was teaching my thing on haibun.)
I wish I was a little physically sturdier these days (managed to come down with another antibiotic-requiring throat infection, and then throw my neck out sneezing ?!?) so I could do even more socializing, but had to kind of chill out on activities in the last two days to recover. Tonight Kim Addonizio reads and there is a little reception afterwards to say goodbye. Should be fun!
I’ve been busy preparing for my class for next week’s Port Townsend Writer’s Conference. It’s on haiku and haibun, so I’m getting exercises together, finding examples and definitions, etc. I’m really loving Sam Hamill’s translation of Basho’s Narrow Road to the Interior. Basho is all poetry-biz gossip and allusion to classic Japanese literature in his haibun – surprising, right? – and Sam’s language captures his tone very well, I think.
I did have a fun break on the 4th – husband G and I got to have brunch with one of my favorite inspirations, poet Denise Duhamel and her husband Nick Carbo, who were in Seattle for like half a day, and then go to local poetry bookstore Open Books, where we met up with fellow Pacific U MFA alum Jennifer Whetham. Denise is just as animated and sweet as her poems might indicate. Then G and I watched some fireworks, just like old times.
In the next week, we have our fourteenth (!!) anniversary, G’s 37th birthday, and of course, the aforementioned PT Writer’s Conference. Too much stuff going on at once!
In good news, we saw a mother sea otter with two babies yesterday, and a multitude of seals. We keep showing up at the beach at 9 PM, and the aquatic mammals keep putting on a show! Better than those expensive aquariums by far 🙂 And I think Port Townsend’s deer are multiplying…
I’ve finally written some new poems in a series I’ve been thinking about for a while now, tentatively called “The Robot Scientist’s Daughter.” Not sure if they’re supposed to be part of one of the books I’m working on, or their own thing. Either way, after a bit of a dry writing spell, yay!
