A Little Bit of Perfume in Your Poetry?

Once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I took my biology degree and went and managed a perfume shop for rare and expensive perfumes in Cincinnati. It has since been shuttered, but it carried some wonderful lines that were otherwise unavailable to most people in Ohio: Caron, Hermes, Cartier, Parfums Grey. I particularly loved the carved flacons of Panthere, with little panthers and jeweled eyes, and the gorgeous “Blond Tabac” available for $150 in a carved glass flacon. I loved being around perfumes, until my asthma drove me into the more prosaic, and admittedly, more lucrative field of technical writing, in which I worked more or less happily for some years.
This preface is just to tell you why I’m writing about perfumes in the middle of a poet’s blog. I’ve long been attracted to difficult and hard-to-find fragrances since my days as a perfume salesgirl, and I have a pretty good nose (I’m also a supertaster, when I don’t have a cold, anyway!) I couldn’t afford the best perfumes when I worked at the perfume store, but I loved the samples and I still do! Buying good perfumes on a poet’s salary can be tough, so I do a lot of research before I invest in a new bottle (or ask someone else to invest for me.)
So, lately, there have been some fairly interesting new fragrances coming out, and since it’s near Valentine’s Day, that time-honored season of buying perfume for loved ones, and I’d acquired some new samples, I thought I’d give some short reviews. Another piece of preface: I tend to like complicated orientals (Coco by Chanel, the aforementioned Panthere by Cartier) but hate any notes of green or patchouli. I also, on the other hand, like extremely fresh citrus fragrances (Strawberry Flowers by Fresh, available a couple of years ago, was a fantastic, sophisticated version of a fruity floral, and Orange Verte by Hermes is another loved fragrance. Comptoir Sud Pacifique made a strange but wonderful line including a fresh grapefruit called Pamplemousse, some wonderful tropical-candy fragrances, not too sweet, like Coeur de Vahine.
But lately I’ve been craving something like Caron’s Blond Tabac, but a bit more playful, so I was looking forward to trying Tom Ford’s new Vanille Tabac.
—Tom Ford’s Vanilla Tobacco – I was finally able to find this fragrance at Nordstrom’s, and the top notes were delicious – a really true, dark vanilla and a nice non-smoky tobacco flower fragrance. But. But….two hours later, my wrist – despite three washes – smelt strongly of damp burning cedar and not in a good way. Dry down = terrible, although the perfume person claimed a “vertical drydown” – which by the way, is nearly impossible to achieve, so don’t believe it if anyone says their perfume has it. I will say, though that Tom Ford’s “Cafe Rose” – and I don’t usually like rose fragrances – was a nice true rose combined with a happy coffee-vanilla-and-white-flower fragrance, so if you’re looking to try one of his new ones, that’s what I’d recommend. Very romantic!
Atelier Cologne is a new line with extremely high levels of essential oils (so don’t expect a true “cologne” experience – it’s closer to an “eau de parfum” in most American perfume lines. Very hard to find here in Seattle since Neiman’s stopped carrying it, I had to order samples from the main store many states away, unfortunately. But, I didn’t want my experience wasted, so here you go!
—Orange Sanguine. I’d already fallen in love with this when it came out last year and Glenn brought home a  bottle for me, it does smell like just-cut oranges, coffee, and amber. Really long-lasting for a citrus fragrance, too.The company says it’s got a tonka bean bottle note, which I hate in Guerlain perfumes, but it doesn’t bother me and is not noticeably powdery.
The new fragrances:
—Rose Anonyme – Again, I admit to not being a true lover of rose, this one was very strong but surprisingly true and long-lasting. Base notes of Oud, incense and (that despised) patchouli but a very pleasant herbal middle note of ginger that I really liked. Good – but not for me.
—Oolong Infini.- I was expecting to like this one, because I love Barney’s Route du The and other tea-based perfumes, and I LOVED it. (The postcard alone – pictured here – would tempt any writer.) Along with the tea top note, leather, my beloved tobacco flower, jasmine – and a slightly more floral drydown than you might expect from that list. Clean, fresh, and truly unisex – it smelled as good on my husband as it did on me.
—Vanille Insensee – I don’t usually like sweet-artificial vanilla perfumes, available by the dozen everywhere these days, but this was very subtle and clean, almost herbal. That’s probably because of the oak, moss, cedar and coriander notes – notes as I said I don’t typically like – but the fresh lime and jasmine notes kind of clean up the dampness of those notes, I think. Anyway, great for people who like vanilla but not most typical vanilla perfumes.
—Grand Neroli – Clean and WAY more masculine than I was expecting for a “Grand Neroli” – orange flower is usually read as a feminine fragrance, but this is beefed up with some herbals, it almost reads like “4711” – a French cologne for men I really like. Don’t buy this expecting something sweet and girlish – it’s fresh, clean, bracing, and a teensy bit green.
Happy perfume shopping!

A New Anthology from New Binary, and the death of poetry

I finally got my contributor’s copy of New Binary Press’s first Anthology, which contains, among other poems, several from me, several from fellow Washington poets Annette Spaulding-Convy and Kathleen Flenniken, and an array of Irish poets that it was a pleasure to read. I recommend it! I’m always interested in international anthologies, even if this one wasn’t be published by my third book’s publisher! Here’s a little picture, courtesy of my mother’s cell phone.

Also, a short retort to all the hullabaloo about the death of poetry. What I’ve noticed is, most people these days can barely read, and when they want to read, they want something wish-fulfillment-y and unchallenging. Poetry makes you work, and thus, is described as “hard.”
Which is not one whit different from any other time in history, except people who don’t want to read have a range of other options to entertain themselves with.  And poetry these days doesn’t always rhyme, which always seems to surprise people (one of the complaints about the inaugural poem) though the prose poem came around in the late 1890’s, and the Modernists – starting in the 1920s – really brought that whole “no rhyme” thing into fashion. Like, eighty years ago. Get with the trends, people!
So, in summation: poetry is no more dead than it has ever been, unless you count back in ancient times, when poets were the substitute for newspapers, movies, and rock concerts.

Lucky, or What it Takes

Lucky…it is such a loaded word, isn’t it?

I had a really bad day a couple of days ago – nothing earthshattering – a lost check, a husband accidentally breaking a cell phone, an ankle contusion, a disappointing doctor’s appointment, money worries, a fight with family – but a day that made me question what it is I’ve been trying to do all these years with poetry, and if it was possible to have any kind of “successful” life given the health stuff I’ve been handed by the universe.

I used to work ninety hour work weeks as a technical manager, until the combination of a heritable bleeding disorder and connective tissue autoimmune problems almost killed me. I was literally forced to rethink the way I was living, and had to quit my very demanding job. And since I quit, that was almost ten years ago now, I decided to try to live a life around what I really wanted to do – which was write poetry. I volunteered for literary organizations, I went and got an MFA and then taught at an MFA as an adjunct, I published first a chapbook, then a book and then two books. I haven’t been able to do some things a writer really should do to be successful – travel a lot for book tours, for example, or go to AWP every year – mostly because of health reasons, but sometimes also money reasons (the lack of a full-time job is not great for finances, in case you were wondering…) I’ve worked almost a year as my city’s Poet Laureate, a position that’s required every ounce of tact, enthusiasm, planning, and the ability to handle challenge and disappointment as well as a thrilling chance to get to know and help my own community. And I’m looking at book three coming out in a couple of months.

All of this is exciting, but is it lucky? What is luck? If you volunteer for ten years and study and work really hard at submitting and dedicating yourself to the craft of poetry writing and do readings/social media…you will still have days when you doubt yourself and your work and wonder if anything you’re doing is worthwhile. You have to remind yourself of your successes and try to ignore the rejections, the empty reading chairs, the unexpected things you’ll take too hard (for instance, my doctor the other day revealing that his son was the head of creative writing at a large university and had won a Stegner fellowship and a Whiting Award and was on his third book. The son was my age. Talk about a blow to your self-esteem while still in a dressing gown! Not cool. For some people it seems so easy…they seem so lucky!) You can not let yourself be stopped by bad things (Flannery O’Connor had lupus and died at my age, 39, but managed to create an amazing body of literary work, friendships, and spirit, for example.) That’s not luck, but determination. You can take advantage of opportunities that come your way, and work hard when you get these opportunities. You can be kind to people in general because being kind is work you probably won’t regret down the line. On your bad days, you have to believe…maybe the combination of hard work, persistence, and luck and faith will somehow win you…if not the life you’ve dreamed of, maybe a life you can be proud of.

Thanks to Robert Brewer for inspiring my meditation with his own blog post on luck, here: http://robertleebrewer.blogspot.com/2013/01/3-ways-to-make-your-own-luck.html

Reading Friday Evening at Tacoma’s King’s Books

Hope to see a few of my Tacoma friends there! Come on out in you’re nearby and say hello!
http://www.kingsbookstore.com/event/poetsjan

7 PM, Friday January 11th at King’s Bookstore

This monthly event features a Distinguished Writer followed by an Open Mic. This month features poet Jeannine Hall Gailey, the Poet Laureate of Redmond, WA. She is the author of Becoming the Villainess (2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (2011). She teaches part-time for National University’s MFA program and volunteers for Crab Creek Review. Following her is an Open Mic, open to all poets, sign-up is at 6:45 pm. Admission is free. The event occurs monthly the second Friday of every month at King’s Books. Sponsored by the Puget Sound Poetry Connection and the Tacoma Arts Commission.

A Sneak Peek at the Cover of my Next Book, Unexplained Fevers

This is a sneak peek of the cover of my upcoming third book, Unexplained Fevers. The art work is by Michaela Eaves. Let me know what you think! Would you buy this book?