Hey ya’ll. Sorry I’ve been a bit out of commission lately. We finally did sign a six-month lease on a place out a bit farther in the country than our current place, for more $$ than we wanted to spend, but hey, at least it’s a nice place and the person we’re renting from seems great. That’s always important to me.
I’ve been a bit under the weather. They’re checking me for some heart stuff, including infections of the heart, especially since I had some dental work before the symptoms, so if you want to think good thoughts for my health, go for it, you powerful positive thinkers! I’m going to a cardiologist and they’re also testing me for other fun stuff too, including Lupus (again.) I actually feel okay, but the tests always make me nervous. (Did I mention the doc who told me when I was nineteen before some blood work on a Friday: “Well, we think it’s either AIDS, Lupus, or cancer. Have a good weekend!” Hilarious in recollection, but not hilarious at the time. Did I mention at the time I was a lab tech in an infectious disease blood testing lab? Good times. )
Seriously, though, mostly I feel fine, just tired. I’m even going to MC for the lovely Rebecca Loudon on Thursday Night at the Soul Food Books reading. So I’m still going out and about, just taking it a little easier than usual and making more stops at the labs. I should get a frequent buyers card from those guys or something. At least a lollipop.
Loved the new issue of Rhino, especially Steve Mueske’s “My Life as a Kung Fu Movie,” and work by several friends including Lana Ayers, Kelli Agodon, and Martha Silano (way to work it, Seattle girls!) A little more dark and “experimental” (I know, everyone hates that word, I’m sorry!) than I’m used to from Rhino, but I really enjoyed a ton of the work. And did get a chance to read and admire Jessica Smith’s Organic Furniture Cellar. Production values are off the charts. Jessica’s definitely a visual-poetry person, and I love the way she uses the page, and the phrases she uses to tie the poems together. I admit it’s challening work, but interesting and a worth a little effort. I wish I was more of a visual-art type. Seriously, I think I failed my arts-and-crafts classes in elementary school. And maps. Nobody ask me to make anyone else a map of anything.
Feeling a little sad after a rejection from A Public Space, one of my favorite magazines. Usually I don’t take these things too personally, I hate it when you love a magazine and they don’t love you back. It makes you feel like one of those eighties teen movie characters, the ones that always end up “best friends” with the guy.
Note: first writing cartoons for the Poetry Foundation, and now this? Sellout! Now I wish I could make maps and draw cartoons!
Other Note: Nice work, Peter! And now I know why I get along so well with Peter – he’s one of those Cancer men!
Does anyone write nicer rejection slips than The Atlantic…
Since they’ve gotten a new poetry editor? Yesterday in the mail, on typed heavy paper, was the following note:
Dear Jeannine Hall Gailey,
Diverting poems, especially those that find you flexing your wit – after sifting through submissions upon an afternoon, I’m inclined to think that maybe we should all take a leaf from your little brother and read more poetry that doesn’t begin with I. Alas, our backlog is diabolical at the moment, and we’ll have to pass with regrets. Many thanks all the same for the chance to see more of your work.
Sincerely,
David Barber
Poetry Editor
It was very clear the editor had actually read and responded to the poems, (including a reference to a line in a poem “My Little Brother Learns Japanese” which goes “He reads poem/that do not begin with ‘I’”) which is a rarity these days in the cold literary mag market. Not only that, he responded in a timely manner, with mild encouragement but no promises – a perfect kind of rejection. I mean, if the Atlantic, who gets hundreds of thousands of submissions a year, can be so civil, in a note that got back to me in less than three months – why can’t other literary magazines do more than an inch of printed paper with a pre-printed “Thanks but no Thanks” after ten or eleven months? It makes me want to submit only to places as nice as these guys. Tell me your “best rejection slip” stories – share your stories of nicer-than-expected editors. Let’s praise those who make an effort to actually encourage us!
The Post-MFA Blues
I don’t want to discourage anyone in the middle of an MFA program, or those who are thinking about attending. But I will say that since graduation, I have experienced more of a letdown/depression/slow leaking out of hope than anything I’ve experienced since my total health breakdown of a few years ago. What I wonder is, Why? I didn’t go into an MFA program expecting really anything out of it, except for time to write (which I got – enough to finish one first book and get a good start on a second) and some feedback and encouragement (which I got, wonderful feedback from wonderful mentors.) I didn’t expect graduating with some extra letters to change my life, land me a dream job in publishing or academia, or some kind of mystical “now my writing life can begin” aura. But still, now that I’m out, and settling into the daily grind of freelance work for “the Man,” house-related chores, and writing without deadlines or feedback, I feel less inclined to write or submit, I double-think new poems or chuck them. I don’t want to send my new book manuscript out. I think I’m stuck in a negative-thinking pattern, and I don’t know how to get out. Any advice from others who’ve got through post-MFA blues?
In answer to the above, see The Atlantic’s article, So You Want to be a Writer?
And, go check out Mary Biddinger’s new book cover!
