A Week of Solar Eclipse, Loss and Sadness, a Tribute to Louise Glück, and Some Thoughts on Poetry, Academia, Ambition and the Establishment

Me in an enchanted secret garden

Pictures of Fall and a Post about Solar Eclipses, Sadness, and Poetry

I have some gorgeous pictures from a beautiful bluebird day earlier this week when we managed to get out into nature and visit some local farms, but right now I’ve been sick in bed all weekend, a rainy weekend that reminded me that the end of the year is coming faster than I expected.

I’ve been feeling down this week—no wonder, with the endless tragic stream from Israel and Gaza, with the death of one of my favorite poets, and the shorter days and illness, it’s hard to post a chipper post. I can at least report I’ve been practicing my bird shots on the new camera, so hopefully the new ones will be better.

Tribute (of sorts) to Louise Glück

Anna’s hummingbird with pink salvia

Louise Glück passed away this week, which made me remember all my encounters with one of my favorite contemporary poets. Not a warm and fuzzy person, she was stylish and her writing always had an edge. I call her one of my “villainess” writing heroes—along with Margaret Atwood—who eschew easy, nice, characters and conversations in their writing. They deny the need for women to be, “nice”.

When I was an undergrad at UC (Ohio), she came to visit, and I got to ask her a question. It was just after Wild Iris was published and won the Pulitzer, and I asked her if H.D. was an influence. She replied she had no idea who that was—and to this day, I don’t know if she was messing with me or she genuinely had no idea about one of more famous female modernists who wrote arresting poems about flowers. Maybe? That night she gave a reading from some new poems from Meadowlands, and I brought my little brother who was in high school, and some of his friends —their first poetry reading. He went right up to her after the reading, and, knowing the way to a girl’s heart, complimented her shoes—which were excellent, and she giggled like a schoolgirl and could not have appeared more delighted. And my brother and his friends—all of them looking faintly menacing—could not have had a better time. At a poetry reading!

As I started to try to define who I was a poet, I know that certain female poets—of the dead, Emily D., of course, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sylvia Plath—but Gluck, Atwood, Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Denise Duhamel, and Dorianne Laux – they became like a power source that I could go back to, to read and energize. I only got a few chances to see Atwood, got to have dinner with Denise on one of her trips to Seattle, and worked with Dorianne while she was at Pacific U  but I saw Glück read probably five times, which is amazing, considering we live on different coasts and I don’t think she loved travelling or giving readings, especially as she got older. (I missed Lucille Clifton as she had to cancel her Seattle trip due to one of her final chemo appointments. I’m still sorry about that. I wish I could have told her all her work meant to me.) Anyway, here is one of my favorite poems of hers, perfect for spooky October with its hauntings: “Gretel in Darkness,” from her second book, House on Marshland, published when I was two years old.

Is October a Season of Mourning?

Me at McMurtrey’s Pumpkin Farm early this week

Louise certainly thought it was—so many poems about October and death and mourning, come to think of it. Since Glück was my father’s age, it brought to mind sad thoughts about my parents’ mortality. The news has been relentlessly grim—even SNL, John Oliver and Colbert had to make pre-show statements to comment on the horror before trying to make us laugh about other subjects, just like, as I remember, it was in the aftermath of 9/11.

There is something about the solar eclipse with ring of fire, the new moon this week, that also made me think of portents. In the Northwest, the sunlight becomes weaker, the night coming surprisingly fast. And yes, it’s cold, flu (and covid, still) season, which means I caught something and am probably not in the best shape to be writing anything deep and meaningful, even though I want to.

Some Thoughts on Poetry, Academia, Ambition and the Establishment

Pumpkins and a welcome bench

I had been thinking of eliminating this blog—or moving to Substack—when I ran into a couple of posts that made me grateful for this longform, easy-to-find-and-read, method of thinking and communicating that’s outside the gates of Facebook, Twitter, or academic publishing.

The first was by my friend Lesley Wheeler—about the closing of Gettysburg Review, the waning of literary criticism and of the English Department—and indeed, academe in general. The other was my blog-gatherer-extraordinaire and haiku poet Dave Bonta, who wrote a post about ambition, poetry, and careers. Both posts are thought-provoking and worth your time. One thing that Dave mentions that I have found to be true is that poetry in academia is a colder, meaner sort of world than say, the speculative poetry world, the horror poetry world, or, in Dave’s experience, the haiku/haibun community. When Lesley talks about the closing and narrowing of academia’s support of poetry, literature, liberal arts in general, I am reminded of all my reading on Cold War Culture than indicated the American government was secretly propping up—and using for propaganda—many of the big journals we have come to think of as “permanent” features. Between the fifties and the eighties, the intelligence community thought it was important to show that America had its own artists that could compete with Russia’s—and, of course, they wanted to follow any potential communists into artistic enclaves. So, they gave money to Kenyon Review, Poetry, Paris Review, they helped publish books like Dr. Zhivago. Now, anti-intellectualism is king in politics—the government’s no longer interested in being a patron of the arts. Lesley mentions the patronage that most artists need to live as disappearing—but maybe it was always a sort of mirage. How many people in my generation could even procure a tenure track job in English Literature or Creative Writing? And the chances for the people younger than me, even less. Last week I talked about money and the awards system—a sort of insider trading post about how being wealthy enables you to get more money from grants, awards, and fellowships because you know some sort of secret password—whether it’s a certain college degree, championship by a wealthy mentor, or other. These things feel forbidden to talk about in the poetry world—but I feel it’s also important to point out that the poetry world is as corrupt and given to influence as any field, but also has its havens from that corruption if you look for them.

As a writer, I’ve always felt like an outsider—first, being a woman who did not come (or marry into) money, now, being a disabled and chronically ill woman who still has not won the lottery—and part of me feels like I’ve been beating a fist on the big blank walls of poetry institutions for more than twenty years. I’ve written hundreds of reviews, too, a world that is apparently disappearing, the idea of literary criticism itself being valuable enough to be paid for—was that a waste of time? Dave’s comments on ambitions as it refers to writing—not career—are important, as they get to a truth that might be more important now as it feels so many things we value are decaying before our eyes—that creating art is beautiful and worthwhile, and so is making art accessible to everyone, not just an elite few.

In the Days After the Solar Eclipse

So, in these days after the solar eclipse with ring of fire, a photograph of which became the book cover art rendering for Flare, Corona, my latest book, I hope you are creating, celebrating creating, reading and making art for art’s sake. I don’t wish you to ignore the ugliness of the world—we cannot, even if we want to—but I hope for this particular solar weather to invoke some kind of peace, healing, and hope around the world, and in me and you as well.

I just walked out in my front yard – I couldn’t sleep after sleeping most of the day, and it felt cooler outside—and as I admired Glenn’s work with the Halloween decorations, I heard two owls hooting (pretty close to me) and a coyote. At first, I thought we had spooky sound effects on, but no! It was nature’s own spooky sound effects. Maybe that is the blessing of the world at night—so peaceful, always a little beautiful and a little threatening.

October or August? More Pumpkin Farms, A Review of Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV+, Talking a Little about Prizes (and Why You Shouldn’t Feel Bad if You Don’t Win)

Dragon and pumpkins at Molbak’s

October or August? More Pumpkin Farms, Prizes, and Shows for Smart Girls

This week it has felt more like August than October, with sunny skies and temps up to 80°F! Glenn and I took advantage of the sun to make the rounds of our favorite pumpkin farms and gardens, Glenn got lots of outdoor projects done, and I walked so much every day my feet hurt (for an MS person, this is a good thing! It means you’re walking more and your legs aren’t giving out before your feet!)

It was also a week where many awards including the Nobel Prize and the MacArthur Genius Grant, were announced, so if you’re feeling like an also-ran, I’ve got a little bit to say about that later on in the post.

I also had a sneak peek at the new Apple TV show Lessons in Chemistry, based on the book about a frustrated female chemist who becomes a cooking show star. My review later in the post too.

For now, pictures of sunsets in Kirkland, Bob’s Corn & Pumpkin farm near Maltby (also a purveyor of excellent Pazazz apples, which are like even better Honeycrisps), and of course our local garden center and JB Growers Pumpkin Farm and Sunflower maze:

Pumpkins and silo at Bob’s

A Brief Review from a Sneak Peek of the First Episode of Lessons in Chemistry on AppleTV+

I got a chance to see an early sneak peek of the first episode of the show based on book (which I really liked) Lessons in Chemistry. The intro’s music and art are pretty cool (doodling DNA with perky fifties tunes and colors), and Brie Larson does a fairly good job of the put-upon smart girl chemist who turns into a television cooking personality. This book covers a lot of the same ground that our recent Woodinville book club pick, When Women Were Dragons, sans dragons.  It’s a very satisfying watch for any girl who’s been underappreciated and underestimated in the sciences (says the girl with the pre-med biology degree) and reminded me of several incidences that happened to me in the eighties and nineties. My question is, are there enough STEM girls to sustain an audience for the show? My husband, who has a degree in chemical engineering and is also a wonderful cook, was impressed, but thought the science parts weren’t hard-core enough. I will definitely tune in to watch it again on its real debut date. There have been several shows, including Dickenson (about the life of Emily Dickinson) that AppleTV+ gave a home to that maybe mainstream outlets wouldn’t have. This might be one of them. I wish the show luck.

Antique tractor wheel and pumpkins at Bob’s

And Speaking of Underappreciated…Talking about Awards and When You Don’t Win Them

This week might have felt discouraging to you (or encouraging, depending on your POV) with the announcements of the Nobel Prize and the MacArthur Genius Grants. Now, these are some of the biggest prizes, so you might not have been disappointed (see a hilarious discussion of a suicide attempt by Steve Corell in Little Miss Sunshine related to the MacArthur…I remember being the only one laughing in the theater during the joke, but I bet you guys would get it).

So…you’re a writer of a certain age, who has written a certain number of books, and after, say, twenty years, you’re still not getting major attention for your work. Read: you are not winning the big money, big attention awards.

But think about this: the people that are winning the big awards are not winning by accident, and maybe not even because of their talent. Someone out there has done a PR campaign, gotten to have lunch with the right people in charge, went to the right schools, got the right mentors. And a LOT of that has to do with class and with money. No disrespect to people that win big, but if you look behind the curtains, you’ll notice that a LOT of them have a LOT of money. It costs something to put yourself out there in the best light—either money from your publisher, or your family, or from powerful mentors at powerful institutions. Does this mean, shocking intake of breath, literature is not always a meritocracy? I’m just going to suggest that those of you struggling with not getting a major award should realize that there are aspects of the world of grants, fellowships, prestige awards that are not going to be…completely in your control. I wish people would talk about this stuff a little bit more and be more honest about what it takes to really make it as a poet. For instance, Louise Gluck inherited a fortune from her father’s invention of the X-acto knife. Merwin inherited a ton of money, TS Eliot married it (and then put his wife in an institution so he could access that money faster). No shade on any of those poets (well, maybe a little at Eliot—what a jerk!), but they were able to be influential poets because they had talent but also because they had money.

Not to say every poet with money becomes influential, or every prize winner has secret millions (but you’d be surprised how many do!) I wasn’t born with money, I didn’t marry into money, and I didn’t win the lottery, so I didn’t go to the fanciest schools and I’m still paying off student loans from my less-fancy schools. Does that mean I will live a writer’s life without recognition, awards, fellowships, etc? Not necessarily. I do know people who are just like me who have succeeded in making the “big time.” And Sylvia Plath won the Pulitzer…but not ’til many years after her death. So perhaps we all—writers, scientists, people in competitive fields like composing or physics—feel that we are being looked over, but continue with our work nonetheless. I remember my father, a robotics scientist, was always depressed a week or so after learning he didn’t win an NSF (the science equivalent of the NEA) grant. I later had a college roommate who was one of the people who screened NSF applications, who told me it was a depressing job because there were so many great applicants, but she could only choose a very small number to win. I think about both those things a lot.

So instead, let’s write not to win awards but because you like creating, and make sure not to let a rejection or someone else getting a prize you wanted ruin even a week of your life. After all, outside are pumpkin farms and sunsets and turning leaves. There are wars going on, yes, but there are also kind people doing kind things for other people. When we have wildfire smoke here, sometimes all you can do is notice the wildfires. When you feel a depression because you’ve worked many years and have little to show for it, it can feel like that wildfire smoke—it’s all you see and feel. Humans are built to notice danger, so we also have a negativity bias towards remembering our rejections, our failures, the things we haven’t gotten, the fires and wars going on around us, rather than our successes, our loved ones, evidence of kindness and the beautiful things in the world.

At Molbak’s, a fall scene

I didn’t mean to go a little dark here at the end. I may have been feeling a little down lately about my own writing and the writing life in general, questioning my purpose and my future. The new war that just sparked overnight, an earthquake close to here, all things that unsettle and upend. Though I love fall, the season does tend to make me more of a ruminant—what am I doing with my life? Where am I heading? I did want to reassure other writers that the reasons that they might be overlooked are more complex than they imagine, and money is such a taboo topic among writers, when it really shouldn’t be. I hope you feel a little better and wishing you a happy October week ahead. If you’re lucky enough to have some sunshine, I wish you pumpkin farms and a bunch of really good apples.

It’s Fall Witches! Autumn Equinox with Glass Pumpkins, a Reading Report from Edmonds Bookshop and an Upcoming Zoom Reading, Exciting Acceptances

New hair color in Kirkland, with roses

It’s Fall Witches! Autumn Equinox with Glass Pumpkins (and New Hair Color Debut)

Happy Fall! Now that the autumn equinox has come and gone, we in Seattle have seen the return of the cold (brrr) and rain that defines our region between September and May. I’ve changed my hair from pink to a more autumn-friendly color in honor of the season.

I’ve had a busy week—a reading with Catherine Kyle Broadwall at Edmonds Bookshop, a visit to a Glass Pumpkin exhibit, and four (!) rejections and two acceptances—including a really exciting one I’ll tell you about further down.

So here are a few pictures from our visit to Molbak’s and their Glass Pumpkin Day from Tacoma Glassmaking studios. We ended up getting a little amanita glass mushroom, but everything was gorgeous. Molbak’s in September was already putting up holiday decorations, so we snapped a picture! Funny! We just barely started putting out our fall decorations…It’s weird that we’re already heading into the end of 2023. It went faster than I thought!

Me and Catherine Broadwall at Edmonds Bookshop

Reading Report from Edmonds Bookshop and an Upcoming Zoom Reading

On Thursday evening I did a reading with Catherine Kyle Broadwall (she read from her fun new book, Fulgurite—full of fairy tale poems!) and read from Field Guide to the End of the World and Flare, Corona, which I think went pretty well. Had a good crowd, it was a super cute store—great eclectic magazine sections, great fiction and poetry sections, and a stuffed narwhal hanging from the ceiling, and we sold a lot of books, which was fun. It had been a minute since I’d done a reading, so I was glad it went pretty well.

I have a Zoom reading coming up on Thursday at 4 PM Pacific with Redheaded Stepchild Literary Magazine—more info on Facebook about how to sign up for the Zoom reading here: Book Launch with Jeannine Hall Gailey & Open Mic with Redheaded Stepchild | Facebook

If you can’t make it out to the Seattle area, please come see me read on Zoom! Should be fun!

Glenn and I at Kirkland’s Carillon Point

A Busy Week of Rejections AND Exciting Acceptances

It’s been a busy week this week writing-wise as well. I got a total of four rejections and two acceptances this week – and one was from a place I’ve been trying to get into for years, JAMA, or the Journal of the American Medical Association. I’m not a doctor, but I do have a pre-med biology degree, and I write medically themed poetry all the time, so it seemed like a natural fit—but the first poem they took wasn’t at all medically related, ironically. Ha ha!

Fall always means new pens and notebooks, catching up on paperwork, starting the academic year—so even those of us who don’t work in academia will be affected by the increased work at literary magazines or invitations to come read at classes, all that sort of thing.

Although I am still recovering from my antibody infusion from almost two weeks ago, I’m starting to feel a little more productive as the days get colder and shorter. I’ve been trying to catch up on reading, writing, and submissions, as well as getting blurbs written (two done, one to go) and other writerly side-work.

I hope you are all at home tonight with a cup of hot apple cider and a good book, and enjoying whatever gives you the fall vibes. Maybe I’ll put on a spooky movie and try to get to sleep early—I’ve got a week full of medical appointments (much less fun than the reading!) so hopefully I can keep my energy going.

An Infusion, A New Review for Flare, Corona, an Upcoming Reading at Edmonds Bookshop, and Spending Time in Flower Fields

Glenn and I with bouquet at Flower Farm

Still Alive! An Infusion, Recovery Time, and a New Review of Flare, Corona

So, Monday I was healthy enough to get my antibody infusion finally, so I spent four hours with a needle in my vein, getting my temperature and blood pressure checked, and getting antibodies I can’t create put into my body. No major problems yet—still alive, as the pictures will prove—but I was knocked out for at least four days. I know some people with MS get these things once a month – as well as cancer patients, and people with immune problems like mine – but this was my first “infusion center” experience.
At least I got to finish my book (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, about two childhood friends who become game developers) and finally watch the Barbie movie, as well as a Joyride (think The Hangover, but for girls). One weird side effect was that I was fatigued but could barely sleep at all the first three days, hence all the reading and movie watching. Barbie did make me laugh but wasn’t quite as girl-power-y as I’d hoped, and I felt the overall message for viewers was somewhat sad; Barbie’s famous last scene isn’t going to college or getting to be CEO of Mattel, it’s going to the ob/gyn? I know it was meant as a joke, but I felt like it a bit deflating. The “Kens” got a lot of the laughs, and the human girls/women and the Barbies seemed so defeated. I wonder if my reaction is one of high expectation: it had gorgeous costumes, makeup, and sets, and a lot of Barbie-inside jokes and hat-tips to classic movies, but I just wanted…more? Joyride, on the other hand, was a heart-breaking/funny meditation on friendship, race and racism, work, and love/sex. It was maybe the more empowering movie? But again, I went in with no expectations, really.

Dahlias at Roozengaarde

A New Review of Flare, Corona up at The Poetry Question

I was a little bit out of it when it came out, but a brand new (and very kind) review of Flare, Corona came out at The Poetry Question. Here’s a quote:

“As someone new to Gailey’s work, I was instantly and repeatedly struck with how effective the author is at discussing some of the hardest moments of human experience with absolute grace and subtlety. Flare, Corona is an essential addition to disability poetics, a collection that offers an unashamed and deeply vulnerable window into chronic illness.”

Read the whole thing at the below link:
REVIEW: FLARE, CORONA BY JEANNINE HALL GAILEY (BOA EDITIONS) – (thepoetryquestion.com)

dahlias at Roozengaarde

An Upcoming Reading at Edmond Bookshop—in the News!—this Thursday

I’m reading from Flare, Corona with my friend Catherine Broadwall for her second book, Fulgurite, at the Edmonds Bookshop this Thursday from 6-7 PM (early!) so I hope to see some of you there. It’s part of the Edmonds Thursday night art walk event which should be fun! Some media info on it:

• Art Beat: Fiber arts, Art Walk Edmonds, poetry, wreath submissions, plus writing conference and ballet auction – My Edmonds News
• Poetry reading set for Sept. 21 in Edmonds | HeraldNet.com

Glenn and I at farm stand in La Conner, with pumpkins

Recovery Involves a Lot of Flower Gardens

On the fifth day, I was up and around enough to 1) send out a poetry submission, and 2) visit my local Woodinville flower farm, pick up a few cool black squash, and a bouquet of flowers. It was a short outing, but it felt good to walk around in the fresh air and nature.

I finally slept better that night—at least four hours, which was better than I’d done the other nights. My mental abilities definitely felt better after that.

On the sixth day, Saturday, Glenn and I decided to make a spontaneous fast trip up to La Conner, where we found a mysterious amount of corn growing everywhere—the tulip fields, the bird sanctuary? And enjoyed ourselves, stopping by a local farm stand and a quick trip to Roozengaarde tulip farm, which was having a corporate party and to our surprise, did not have its famous bulbs available yet. We still enjoyed walking around enjoying the windmill and dahlias. We didn’t really get up there early enough for most shops or a lot of the coffee shops/restaurants/etc to be open, or the Northwest Museum of Art (which is genuinely very cool) but we still had a good time before we turned around and made the hour+ trip home. I love the Skagit Valley area—the people seem genuinely friendly, and you get to see cows and horses and alpacas and lots of beautiful old barns and a lot of rural beauty. It still seems like a nice place to retire (if/when we get around to that.)

For now, just grateful to still be kicking and hopefully better off with the antibody treatment, ready to get out into the world and do a poetry reading with a friend at a cool indie bookstore this week, grateful for people reading and reviewing Flare, Corona in this busy world where poetry is so easily overlooked. Grateful for good weather, and flower farms near and far.