From the Skagit River Poetry Festival

This morning I woke up, looked out at the blue Skagit Bay waters through a veil of tall thin pines in our hideaway cabin, and watched several quail scurry across a trail towards the water, while my husband cooked up fresh hot blueberry sauce for my frozen banana breakfast (like a sundae, but healthier!)
What am I doing here in the middle of a renovation and a move, you ask? I don’t know! I’m crazy! For poetry! Time enough for packing and moving when we get home tomorrow. And grading. And prepping for the new job. Ack!
Seriously though, had a lot of fun yesterday, though we came up late and only got to see the Carolyn Forche/Tony Hoagland reading. Carolyn read a poem dedicated to her grandmother, and then one dedicated to Ilya Kaminsky. I was distracted by the fact that Tony Hoagland, in a lavender t-shirt and black vest and little glasses, so resembled the dean character from the show Community that I could barely register his poems. (My favorite being the one about his neice in the mall – you know the one.)  There was also a Vancouver band who played early BarenakedLadies-esque vaguely folkish alterna-rock and a third male poet reading some very solemn poetry, during which time Kelli decided to send a message as me to my husband via my cell phone but accidentally sent it to my Facebook status instead. See what you miss when you’re not constantly watching Facebook statuses? Ah, reminiscent of high school, you say, girls texting during class? Even more so if you could see us trying to stifle giggles so one of the festival organizers (sitting immediately to our left) wouldn’t look over at us as if to say, how can you giggle during this poor poet’s frightfully serious poetry! Yes, that’s right. Don’t invite us to your well-behaved poetry readings. We just make trouble.
Aside from that, I stopped by a lovely little store where a local jewelry maker discussed making a little bit of custom jewelry with me (a little metal-stamped book pendant with real paper pages, what a neat idea!) I mean, that’s just the kind of town La Conner is, full of artists where you least expect them. And Kelli and husband G and I went out to dinner at Seeds, where they have lots of gluten-free safe food (some of the first allergic-friendly restaurant food I’ve had out here too!) I ran into Jericho Brown, whom I hadn’t seen since his book Please first came out in San Diego, and who has basically become a gigantic superstar, who was just as sweet and charming as ever. That book is on my recommended reading list for people who want to try persona poetry, by the way.
Today I am looking forward to playing around in the book fair small press area, seeing more readings (the stars at tonight’s reading include one of my favorite poets, Marie Howe, and Bob Hicok, whom I’ve never seen, and Nikki Giovanni, who used to live in both my childhood hometowns, Knoxville and Cincinnati.) I also hope to run into old friends (have run into several so far) which is really the best part of this kind of conference – the happy accidents.

What are your ambitions?

Beautiful May so far. Sun sun sun as far as the eye can see, white mountains in the distance, giant walls of pink rhododendrons blooming along neighborhood streets. Yesterday I did two things that made me think about our ambitions.
The first thing I did was visit Richard Hugo House to meet new director Tree Swenson and talk about the future of the programs and etc. One thing I noticed was besides my friend Evan Peterson (whose chapbook Hello Kitty Chainsaw I recommend) and a couple of other exceptions (including the bright young programming director Brian) the people there in the room were all older than me. A lot older. Did I mention I just turned 39, so I’m not exactly a twentysomething hipster. I thought: this place needs a new generation of champions for the future. Then I thought: that new generation should probably include me! Again, the theme of this year that keeps coming back to me seems to be, we must become the heroes we’re looking for.
After that reception, which was lovely, I got to go out to look at the views of Seattle and go out to dinner with one of my oldest friends (dating back to fifth grade!) who is now a grown-up ER doctor. She always wanted to be a doctor and help people, and now she does things like work with Haitian earthquake victims and low-income folks up in Alaska. We were talking about all the good things that our little circle of friends have become and done: one teaches self-defense to teen girls, one helps run a Chicago center for Spanish-speaking victims of domestic violence, a couple are doctors and almost all of them have achieved the things that they talked about when we were all in junior high. I, of course, wanted to be a poet. So that worked out I guess! (Even if I got a little side-tracked – a pre-med degree here, ten years as a technology manager there…)
It made me think about what we talk about when we talk about ambition. When you said when you first became a writer, “I want to get a book published,” did you have a kind of publisher in mind? Would any publisher do? Did you have an audience you really wanted to reach? When you said, “I want to teach poetry” after you got your MFA, what did you have in mind? Community college students, MFA students, high school kids? Adjuncting, or one of the ever-dwindling supply of tenure-track positions? Sometimes I think an obstacle to success is too-watery, too-non-specific goals. Do you want to be C. Dale Young (doctor/writer/editor/teacher?) or Charles Jensen (poet and arts administrator?) Who do you look up to? Who do you want to become? How much time are you willing to give it and how hard do you want to work for it? Remember: if you want your book reviewed, write some book reviews. If you want someone to help you set up a reading, be sure you’re helping others do the same. Create room in your life for the things you care about and prioritize them.
I realized talking to my old friend Kathy that one of the things I’ve been doing since I was eighteen that I really find rewarding is volunteering with teens. I’ve been working with teens in various capacities for different organizations for almost twenty years, and still find it really fun. The teens speak a different language but for the most part I can keep up. I think that for the rest of this year, part of my goal will be to do more poetry outreach to teens and college students, because when I think of who I want to be excited about poetry, that’s who I think about. They may think poetry is not for them, that it’s boring or old-fashioned, their teachers may not like poetry (since I’ve had quite a few English teachers who hated poetry come through my poetry classes at National’s MFA program…) and so their experiences will have been colored by that. How can I grow my own community here, where I live? How can I help the audience here for poetry get excited? How can I help the pre-existing poetry groups work together towards bigger, brighter goals? What is holding me back from doing more? Fear? Lack of feeling of ownership? Lack of empowerment?
As I’m looking at my near future goals, what is specific and achievable and realistic for me? I think it may be more than I originally might have thought. It’s possible that sometimes, our own ambitions are too small. Maybe we should reach higher, try to achieve more. Maybe while we were waiting for the hero to rescue us, we have unknowingly become the hero.

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!