Teaching in Port Townsend today and tomorrow

I’m teaching an afternoon class on haiku and haibun (with a little bit of Miyazaki in there for good measure) at the Port Townsend Writer’s Conference today from 2 PM to 3:30 PM at and another class tomorrow at the same time on poetry manuscript organization. Should be fun! And I have handouts!

Getting up here was a bit of a nail-biter – an hour-long wait at the ferry, and then being the last car to get on – and then the B&B we were supposed to stay at that I’d made reservations months ago at didn’t work out, so we had to pack up again, get on the internet only to find everything booked up, and ended up having to stay at a Holiday Inn an hour a way last night and a similar place an hour a way in the opposite direction tonight. Not exactly convenient.

But on the plus side, I got to see Kim Addonizio read and say hi to some old friends, including Erin Belieu and Dana Levin (superpoets!) And I saw one deer, one very large otter, a beautiful sunset  and other various wildlife. Yay for Port Townsend. Wish me a little more luck with my lodgings tonight…

The official announcement: Jeannine Hall Gailey is the new Poet Laureate of Redmond

The official announcement is finally here! I’m the new Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. This is the “new job” I’ve been talking about here for the last couple of months. Redmond is a city located a few minutes from Seattle, across Lake Washington, and is home to Microsoft, in case you were wondering where it is.
I’m very excited about the position and hope to help create excitement about poetry in the community. My new slogan is “Geeks for Poetry, Poetry for Geeks” – what do you think? I’m also going to try to launch a book-reading series called “Redmond Reads Poetry” with our library, where we read a book of poetry a quarter as a community – usually a book with some “geeky” aspects – science, comic books, etc. So I have some ambitions for trying out some new programs. My first big reading won’t be til this fall, but there’s plenty of work to do setting things up til then! I’m dying to know what people in Redmond are interested in, poetry-wise, what they think the community really needs, etc. So if you happen to be a Redmond person, please fill me in in the comments!

Thanks to our Washington State Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flenniken, for doing this feature on me today at her blog: http://kathleenflenniken.com/blog/?p=655 

And here’s the official Redmond site: http://www.redmond.gov/ParksRecreation/artsandculture/PoetLaureate/

 In the last few months, I’ve gotten to meet the mayor (who is lovely,) the City Council, and almost the entire Arts department of the City of Redmond, and spent more time in the City Hall than I ever thought I might. When I made my first visit to City Hall to interview, I saw a fox statue, on its hind legs, near the entrance. I decided it was a good omen, what with the whole “fox–wife” and Kitsune thing. Here’s a picture of me that day with the little guy. Doesn’t the fox look like it’s smiling?

The The Poetry Interview and a Busy Week!

Still experiencing repercussions from the bad news of last week, but pulling myself together, especially since I’m up against a super busy week! Check out all this cool stuff:

Check out this surreal interview Saeed Jones did…with my poems! In The The Poetry:
http://www.thethepoetry.com/2012/07/in-a-dark-room-jeannine-gailey/
Saeed is a gifted writer with a really interesting imagination, as you can see from the interview. I just tried to keep up!

Tomorrow I’m finally allowed to make the official announcement about my new job. I’m about to go to a meeting with the Arts Coordinator to finalize some plans. Lots of meetings involved with this job, at least so far…

Later this week I’m going up to the Port Townsend Writers Conference to do two afternoon classes, one on haiku and haibun and another on how to put together a poetry manuscript. I hope to see you there! I’m working on the handouts as we speak. I’m a handout addict!

So that’s today’s news. Tune in tomorrow for our super-secret special official announcement!

Special Appearance by Redmond’s Poet Laureate at Derby Days and thanks

If you come by the Redmond Arts booth at Derby Days today from 2-4 PM you can meet and greet the new official Redmond Poet Laureate. I wonder who she is?

Thanks to all of you who have sent me notes re: the last post. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

In Which Obstables Appear and the dichotomies of being a writer

So, of course, after a post about realizing that we might be already living our perfect life, how we can reach out and improve our communities, being grateful, etc…I’ve had a couple of days of sad news, setbacks, rejections and unexpected problems. Terrible surprises. A little bit of a health scare on top of it. Right now it’s hard to see the upside, the benefits, the possible blessings that will come out of the many slaps in the face, “no” messages from the universe, and just plain bad news.

One of the weird things about being a writer is the dual expectations – we have to be at least somewhat inward-facing, shy, introspective, and focused on art to be writers at all, much less good writers – but we also have to be aware of audience, focused on messages and marketing, extroverted enough to connect to others, someone who can not only write poetry well but get out and read it and sell it and teach it. Hard work. Some weeks, harder than others.When your own dreams get knocked over, can you turn around and inspire others to pursue those dreams themselves?

I am wishing good thoughts to my friends who are going through hard times. I am wishing for myself for faith and more courage and I’m wishing for unexpected solutions to problems that seem hopeless to me right now. I am hoping for better outcomes for all of us than we might expect.