Last Day of Poetry Month, New Interview, and a Poem in APR – Happy Birthday!
- At April 30, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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So, it’s the last day of Poetry Month AND my birthday – that very last birthday of my thirties. So how should we celebrate? How about some links and news and stuff?
Celia Lisset Alvarez interviewed me over at her blog as her last poetry month feature.
And, the May/June 2012 of American Poetry Review is out, with my poem, “Once Upon a Time,” amid some really wonderful writers!
And, one more sticker for She Returns to the Floating World – here it is, all official – it didn’t win, but it was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal.
A quick recap of some other poetry news of April:
- A poem up featured at The Rumpus
- My third book, Unexplained Fevers, a collaborative book of fairy tale poems with artist Deborah Scott, is officially slated for publication by Kitsune Books in late 2013!
- “Morning of Sunflowers (for Fukushima)” was a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize winner.
So yes, there was lots of stress, job interviews, a large handful of rejections, house-buying business, some health stuff…but all in all, I feel extraordinarily blessed this month and grateful. Especially with my husband baking me gluten-free birthday chocolate souffles tonight!
I also have some other exciting news I can’t officially reveal yet. But I promise I will soon!
And, finally, don’t forget to leave a comment at this link for one more chance to participate in the great poetry giveaway.
Coming to the End of Poetry Month, and my birthday…
I’m exhausted but happy coming to the end of Poetry Month! A new class of poetry students, way too many scheduled readings to attend or even try to attend, wild, unpredictable weather, falling cherry blossoms, chocolate bunnies, my birthday – I mean, let’s face it, April can be hectic but fun. Along with celebrating turning another year older successfully, I’m about to be take the plunge into home ownership again, possibly start a new job (more on that later) and it feels like I’m entering a new chapter of my life. A good chapter. I hope! Less “post-apocalyptic survivalist reality show” and more “Girl Finds Love and Success in the Big City!”
It has also started to occur to me, at this birthday go-around, that if we want good things to happen in our community, if we want people around us to get to know and love poetry, that we need to take an active hand to make that happen. To paraphrase a popular saying, we have to become the arts advocates we are looking for.
I had a wonderful time working with local musician Joy Mills at the Bushwick Book Club event at Hugo House. Hearing the song she wrote based on “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle” was just fantastic, and she is pretty great live, too. I’m glad they didn’t ask me to sing! I just had to read the poem, thank goodness. Had fun meeting other local poets, too. Always a pleasure being at Hugo House.
And now, onto the birthday-end-of-month-scurry-to-get-packed-and-ready-to-move-and-some-other-things-I’ll-reveal-later!
Poets and Music at Hugo House!
Do you enjoy listening to local hip musicians? AND do you enjoy poetry! Then tonight’s event at Richard Hugo House, featuring the Bushwick Book Club‘s collaborative meeting of Seattle poets and musicians, is probably your kind of thing! It’s $8 at the door, but this kind of unique performance is totally worth it. My poem “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle” is going to be turned into a real, live song by the genius work of Joy Mills. Pretty exciting!
Poets include: Ed Skoog, Evan Peterson, Bill Carty, Daemond Arrindell, Elaina Ellis, Jeannine Hall-Gailey, Amber Flame and Elissa Ball.
Musicians include: James Kelly Pitts, Scott Adams, Joy Mills, Karen Lindenberg, Shawnmarie Stanton, Susy Sundborg, Elijah Sussman and Wes Weddell.
Hope to see you there tonight!
And, you know, I may post a bit more about this later, but you may want to keep your eyes open for the May/June issue of American Poetry Review. No special reason, you know, just…
Mini-review of two new books, superstress week, poetry month
Wednesday is the big presentation day that determines whether or not I’ll get the job I’ve been stressing out over for a month or two now. Wish me luck! Contractor meeting this afternoon. And grading. Also, Wednesday night, I’ll be teaching a class with RASP with teens on anime, haiku and haibun. Then, the next day, off to Hugo House for an amazing musician/poet collaborative presentation. Then, I’ll turn 39, then celebrate a few days by signing a lot of papers that will plant us some roots – finally in the Northwest. But whew! This month is killing me! And May is going to be just as busy!
Still trying to keep up with my mini-reviews of my poetry-book-reading-a-day April project, but falling a bit behind. To remedy some of that, here are a couple of reviews of two local writers’ recent books:
Molly Tenenbaum’s The Cupboard Artist, recently out from Floating Bridge Press, presents the every day world: food, music, household objects like ugly paint colors and swing sets – in a way that reflects on human relationships, science, and the universe. Her whimsical sense of humor and music shine through in poems like “Birthday Cake:” “She’s a cartoon, she’s splashing the spoon,/ she’s a mud-flapping lab coat/ dark stream swirling marbling smoothing/ /he doesn’t like chocolate, he doesn’t -” Floating Bridge always does a loving, lovely job with their production, so the book is a really beautiful artifact as well.
Carol Levin’s Stunned by the Velocity from Pecan Grove Press is a recounting of a year, 1968, and one couple’s adventures and travels, including women kidnapped into a Greek convent, a couple’s sometimes humorous conflicts with hostesses who throw lamps and attempts to procure transportation along the way. Carol works with me at Crab Creek Review and her attention to detail, to the ironies of the troublesome realities of travel, and her unique perspectives on time and place here are sure to delight.
The Rumpus poetry feature today, New Pages mention, and more!
My poem “The Robot Scientist’s Daughter [brushes with death]” is featured up on The Rumpus today: http://therumpus.net/2012/04/
A nice early birthday present – thanks Rumpus!
Also, NewPages.com coincidentally featured a link to my old essay on Poemeleon on women poets and persona poetry here:
http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/women-writers-and-persona-poem.html
So thanks to New Pages too!
A lot of poets are born in April, aren’t they? Tracy K. Smith celebrated her birthday yesterday with a Pulitzer for Life On Mars, which I also celebrated as a win for “geek” poetry! And for scientist’s daughter poets everywhere. (Women poets whose fathers are scientists include Margaret Atwood, Louise Gluck, Tracy K. Smith, Kathleen Flenniken, and me.) Yay! On the down side, fiction writers everywhere were kicked in the teeth when they didn’t choose any winners for fiction this year. Ouch. Personally I think they should have picked Helen Phillips strange, wonderful collection And Yet They Were Happy.
Remember to pick up a ticket to the April 26 event at Hugo House, “Poets and Music.” Local musicians put some local poets’ work to music, including mine! Collaboration at its finest. Joy Mills is producing a song based on a poem, “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle,” from my upcoming third book. I feel really honored.
Here’s a link with more info:
http://www.strangertickets.com/events/4784131/the-bushwick-book-club-seattle-and-the-richard-hugo-house-present
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
