Snow Bees, poems for the weather and some great books I’m reading…
A very seasonally-appropriate Winter 2011 issue of Goblin Fruit is out, featuring my poem “Snow Bees” – you can even hear me reading it!
Incidentally, this is one of the poems that I wrote while collaborating with artist Amy Johnson for her installment art exhibition, which involves snow, wolves, bees, the works. I’ll post info on it as soon as it’s up!
While the doctors are busy trying to figure out why I keep going into anaphylaxis (I’m going to learn to spell that word correctly, for one thing) – food allergies, autoimmune, etc – I’m trying to keep my mind occupied with new reading material. Cate Marvin’s Fragment of the Head of A Queen, Sandra Beasley’s I Am The Jukebox, and issue 8 of Cave Wall, which I’ve seen some people mention lately, and I wanted to discover a new lit mag. I’ve only glanced through all three so far, but I’ve loved what I’ve read of Sandra’s “I Am the Jukebox.” Here’s a little bit from “Another Failed Poem About the Greeks,” which will indicate why I love the book so much:
“His sword dripped blood. His helmet gleamed./ He dragged a Gordon’s head behind him…As first dates go, this was problematic.”
I’m also reading Lizzie Acker’s terrific and strange Monster Party, a hybrid-forms, short-short fiction collection from Small Desk Press, as odd and crazy and interesting as can be. I just finished the story called ‘Baby,’ in which a dying narrator talks to…well, I can’t explain what or who the baby is, but let’s just say, it’s not what you’d guess.
LitCrawl Readings and Report
Woke up this morning to a beautiful fogless San Francisco morning (I got a really cheap rate at a downtown hotel, and they put us on the 31st floor in a tiny room with a great view of the Bay and the Golden Gate bridge.)
Yesterday we rolled into the city – after a beautiful drive through harvest-ready vineyards – during the exhibition of the Blue Angels, which means people driving their cars kept swerving into us because they were watching the planes instead of the street. It was Fleet week, so there were crowds of sailors in uniform everywhere as well. (It made me think of my little nephew, Dustin, who is serving in the Navy now down in Florida.) It was a perfect 70-degree-sunshiney day, and the Mission District seemed charming with its restaurants and shops rather than scary (maybe it was the abundance of writers everywhere?)
My first LitCrawl event was the Small Desk Press reading at Adobe books, a really small and dingy but interesting book store. The space was kind of awkward for a reading, but I really enjoyed meeting the folks there, especially Lizzy Acker (who is the namesake for the Monster Poetry contest I won and whose upcoming book I am looking forward to reading) and Marisa Crawford, who happens to be a Switchback Books author (Rock on, Brandi Homan!) And thanks to my friends who came out to see me 🙂
The second event was at Muddy’s Coffee Shop for the Eleven-Eleven/Fourteen Hills reading. I felt pretty good about this reading (unfortunately, Glenn forgot to turn on the video recorder, or I’d have a nice YouTube video for you) and sold a couple of books, which is always reassuring. The space was nice and big and the crowd was friendly and upbeat. (Also, the other readers had a robot-thing going on in their work that dovetailed nicely with some of my new poems.) The Fourteen Hills editor-girls – especially Hollie, Leanne, and Kelly – were really great – I wish I could bring them with me up to Seattle! They really know how to set up readings. I’ve never been to a Fourteen Hills event that wasn’t a lot of fun. And I came away with back issues of Fourteen Hills and Eleven-Eleven.
Then it was on to the After Party at the Blue Macaw, which had a DJ, a hugely crowded bar, and was the first place I’d ever seen people turned away from a lit party (I watched a big crowd of drunk twenty-something guys get told “You’re not readers? Then you can’t come in. And there were bouncers. Bouncers!) I only stayed an hour or so, but got to talk to a lot of fun people, and got some good feedback on the new Robot Scientist’s Daughter poems I had read – one guy even stopped to talk to me about Oak Ridge and tell me a creepy Disney-robot story that is definitely going to make it into a poem. I can’t reveal everything about it, but it involves an animatronic Lincoln and a death waiver.
Today we’re planning to hit Union Square (I want to take a last look at my favorite art gallery, Jenkins Johnson) and the big Impressionist show from the Musee d’Orsay that’s up at the DeYoung in Golden Gate Park. Then home to pack, because we’re starting our ten-day countdown – to Seattle! Which means my brains will probably be mush for the next two weeks.
Goodbye, San Francisco and friends! I’ll miss you!
Reading at San Francisco’s LitQuake this Saturday, MFA programs
It’s a few weeks before I move, and I’m doing a final reading or two in San Francisco (part of the LitQuake’s Saturday night LitCrawl) if you want to come see me before I flee back to the rainy Northwest. Here’s where you can find me:
Saturday, October 9
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Litquake’s LitCrawl
Adobe Books with Small Desk Press
3166 16th Street, San Francisco, CA
6 PM free
Saturday, October 9
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Muddy’s Coffee House with Fourteen Hills
Valencia & 24th Street
San Francisco, CA
8:30 PM free
Don’t be late – I think I’m reading first!
There has been a lot of discussion (like this article and commentary at The Rumpus and the scandal over a Columbia MFA program’s adjunct professor’s e-mail and this round-up) about MFA programs – if they’re a scam, if they’re any use, if they can make you a good writer, etc. I do know this: they give you time to practice reading and practice writing with people who probably know a lot about both topics. Unless you have access to the aforementioned writing mentors I discussed in the last blog post, it’s probably worthwhile for you, if you want to become a writer, to go to an MFA program to work with other writers to get better. I don’t think you can pay money to “become a writer” – you probably either have a knack/desire for that or you don’t – and they can’t make a dull writer exciting, but on the other side, I don’t think they make exciting writers dull.
In case you’re interested, here’s a little of my personal history with the MFA: I got a full-residential traditional MA (full of lit crit and competitive workshops and professors who didn’t really hang out with students) before getting my low-residency MFA (which was warm and collegial, and the professors did hang out with students. It didn’t have much in the way of lit crit going on but the students were pretty nice to each other.) I appreciate the experiences I had at both programs, but I was definitely more encouraged and grew more as a writer at the MFA. A lot of people talk about funding, too. My MA was fully funded but my low-res MFA, like most low-res programs, was not. I think the MFA was worth the cost (roughly, my friend Kelli always says, equivalent to a used Camry) even though it means student loan payments. Honestly, I think throwing myself into writing full-time – after ten or eleven years of trying to write while working full-time corporate jobs – was really important to me getting anything published (my first book was accepted in the middle of the MFA program, and I wrote my second book while in the second year.) Taking a risk – even a financial risk – was important. I don’t think I really took writing seriously in my life until that time. So it was worth it for me.
Now I teach a little part-time in an MFA program too, and I work really hard to give worthwhile reading suggestions, help students with their work, even give them publication tips when I can. I do it because I care about the students, because I care about poetry, because believe me, I wouldn’t do it for the paycheck (the average adjunct professor is paid worse than a retail worker – and I know, because I put myself through college working retail.)
So all in all, I think the MFA might help you and it probably won’t hurt you. Unless you go to the wrong one, where they’re all mean and discouraging. Also, despite Seth A’s – and many other’s – advice, funding isn’t everything. Make sure the program you’re going to actually cares about you and your writing. Make sure it’s the kind of environment – competitive or nurturing, academically stringent or more relaxed, Midwestern-reserved or West Coast optimistic – that’s right for you. Try to do some research before you apply, talk to alumni – possibly the best way to get a feel for a program is to talk to a couple of alumni and a faculty member if you can.
Also read The Poetry Lesson by Andrei Codrescu, which was much funnier and more satirical than “All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost.” It’s more experimental writing as well. I did not feel depressed after reading it, which is always a bonus.
Who’s a zombie feminist poet? I am!
That’s right! Who won the monster poetry contest? Me, that’s who!
http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/2010/09/02/lizzy-acker-monster-poetry-award-winner-is-jeannine-hall/
Seriously, thanks to Lizzie Acker for choosing my poem, which was brought on by a dream about zombie clone women. Because that’s the kind of dreaming I do all the time. And now I get books from Small Desk Press! And to read with some awesome poets at LitCrawl.
