Review of She Returns to the Floating World in the US Review of Books!

A nice review appeared today in the US Review of Books in the “Honorable Mentions” for the Eric Hoffer Prize, under Poetry. Thank you to the judges of the Eric Hoffer Prize and to the US Review of Books! I’m so grateful.

http://www.theusreview.com/USRhoffer.html#poetry

She Returns to the Floating World, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Kitsune Books – This collection takes a massive risk, and succeeds. Rather than going along with the decidedly luddite personality of contemporary poetry, Gailey faces mainstream pop culture head-on. Gailey weaves classic themes of transformation, self-knowledge, and natural beauty into a fantastical multi-colored world of fairy tales, animation and video games. Rather than poetry that seeks a quiet, cloistered serenity, outside of pop, this book is full of proudly-penned odes to Godzilla, robots, and animated princesses—the denizens of the contemporary imagination. While this approach could come off as gimmicky, Gailey pulls it off with grace, beauty and skill, proving that poetry can be about more than peonies and nightingales.

Port Townsend Reading Rescheduled – Art Opening Instead!

For those of you who were planning to come see me read in Port Townsend tonight – well, the state planned to close the Hood Canal Bridge on me instead, so Annette and I have rescheduled our Northwind series reading until May 24. Hope to see you then!

So I’m not going to waste a beautiful spring night – after Glenn is done with the painting today at the new townhouse, we’re going to go downtown to the wine bar Poco and check out our friend Michaela’s art show:
Join artist Michaela Eaves at her Storm Perfect show opening this Thursday at Poco Wine Room in Seattle.
Michaela is also known as the artist who did the awesome cover of Becoming the Villainess.

Because it’s not every day an awesome songwriter turns my poems into songs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5-Zw9yJ3WY&feature=colike

I don’t know if you’re the type of person who enjoys listening to music, or poems, or the collaboration between songwriters and poets and performers, but here is the wonderful Joy Mills and her musical interpretation of a poem from my third book, “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle,” and me reading the poem and talking a bit about the collaboration. I hope you enjoy it!

Stories In the Hazy Days of May

We had a lovely day today, warm and bright, and I saw a cignet in the water – just one ugly swan-duckling, pale and crying, just like the story! I also saw that the barn swallows and stellar jays were back, a sure sign that spring has sprung, along with the lilacs blooming and the beginning of the peonies. Amid all of this, every day I am watching the new townhouse be torn apart, repainted, floors ripped up and replaced, all the preparations for when we move in – a bit stressful, but happy, these preparations. I bought the least practical thing today – a beautiful glass and copper hummingbird feeder, but I thought it was important in making the new place a home, a place for the hummingbirds. It’s important to have a space for hummingbirds.

This article made me think long and hard about the adjunct teaching I’ve been doing for almost four years now. You wouldn’t guess it, from my being a poet and all, but part of me is deeply practical, and cares about things like paying my student loans and my new mortgage off, you know, eventually. The practical occupations of writers are getting fewer and farther between these days – fewer jobs for journalists, copywriters, teachers, professors. A perilous time for poets.

So what have you been doing with your May days? I am thinking change is in the air. The supermoon is making us all dizzy with it. My little brother posts pictures on Facebook from Venice, Italy, and all the pictures look like illustrations in an old-fashioned book. What kind of fairy tale are we writing for ourselves? A new home, a new life, new beginnings, hummingbirds in the white lilacs.

Winner of the big Poetry Month Giveaway, a new review, a new home

Congratulations to Molly of www.mapsandpoetry.blogspot.com, who is the winner of the great poetry month giveaway! She’s won a copy of my second book, She Returns to the Floating World, Steady My Gaze, and a third mystery book/lit mag! Hope you enjoy, Molly!

Wonderful to receive a copy of Winter 2012 Southern Humanities Review, which has a beautiful long review of She Returns to the Floating World by Celia Lisset Alvarez. Thank you Celia, for the thoughtful review. (Oh, and remember to check out her blog for an interview!)

Well, we’ve turned in the certified check and signed our paperwork, and tonight is our final walkthrough. Hopefully tomorrow we get our new keys!