Happy Valentine’s Day and an upcoming reading with Martha Silano in Redmond
Happy Valentine’s Day out there! Today is a day for exuberance. For chocolates and flowers and celebration! I used to love getting Valentines in that little cardboard box in grade school…and later in junior high and high school, at my school you could buy pink and red carnations and have them sent to someone’s locker and someone always left me one anonymously each year, and I never found out who, but the mystery of it cheered me up! So today, give someone something unexpected. Leave a bigger tip, give them a kiss on the cheek, stay on the phone a little longer than usual. Show yourself more love too.
Glenn made me pink marshmallow hearts dipped in dark chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Gluten-free and delicious! He gets an “A.” And, after getting stuck with needles at the allergist’s all day yesterday, I think I deserve a day of fun, so we are going to see that new meaningless-yet-fun looking movie with Reese Witherspoon and spies.
To honor the day, here’s one of my favorite love poems, by Robert Graves, short but perfect:
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
And now, make sure you mark on your calendars – I’m reading with Martha Silano in two days at Soul Food Books in Redmond! 7 PM February 16th, Soul Food Books. Be there!
Cosmic Fire, Lost Icons, and New Laureates
I was fascinated by the news story about a heart-shaped coronal mass coming from a solar storm that will hit earth around Valentine’s Day. The headline Cosmic Log went with was somewhat less romantic than I would have chosen…
Sorry to lose Whitney Houston, if not surprised. In the eighties I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, and what a gorgeous voice. Losing a lot of my teen icons, these days…
A new Poet Laureate of Washington State was announced, and it was Seattle’s Kathleen Flenniken. Her second book, Plume, I’m reviewing soon deals with subject matter close to my heart – the complicated environmental, personal and political history of Hanford, Washington state’s nuclear plant. Congrats to Kathleen!
(Kathleen is the tall brunette in the middle of this lovely group of poets at Open Books last year:)
Bringing Me Back Down to Earth…
Yes, inevitably, after good news, something happens that brings you back to earth. In my case, every day stresses – Glenn working long hours, must-do-costs like dental work, my folks having some health issues (my dad) and pet health issues (my mom’s little papillon dog), trying to find a place to live permanently here in the NW – have been filling my head.
The house hunt has brought up some internal conflict as well. I’m forced into admitting this autoimmune arthritis means some adjustments. I can’t just run out and buy a cute townhouse with two sets of stairs because of my wonky ankles, which sort of sucks, you know? It’s not the fact that I can’t buy the townhouse – which of course is only sad in the short-term and on a surface level – it’s facing up to my own real limitations these days. My brothers wanted me to fly home to see my nephew who was returning from five years in the Navy, and I had to tell them I couldn’t – right now. Ditto AWP.
So, you take the good news (Dorothy Prize!) with the bad (family stress, health stuff) and try to be gracious and open and keep up your life up as best you can. Life is never all sugar and sunshine – and if it was, we would probably be out enjoying all the good stuff instead of trying to create art, right? Speaking of creating art…I need to get writing AND submitting! I need to make up for a very laggy (is that a word?) January. I’ve got two book reviews – both of books I’m really looking forward to – on my “to do” list as well.
On the up side, Valentine’s Day is on its way – check out Kelli’s offer of cute poet valentines – and make sure you order a copy of Karen Weyant’s new chapbook, Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt. I love Kelli’s devotion to snail mail and Karen’s combo of grit-and-glamour depictions of women.
And, in case you are feeling a wee bit stressed, here is my personal stress attacker: wee polar bears!
Dorothy Prizes and other blessings
No one gets into poetry for the money. But sometimes, the money from poetry can really help.
The last time I got a notice about the Dorothy Prize (and I didn’t know this yet, but good friend Kelli Agodon was a co-winner with me, back in 2007) I had just gotten back from an overnight hospital stay for a terrible asthma attack, our landlord hadn’t paid the propane bill (apparently) so our rental home’s propane tank was repossessed, and my mother was coming to stay in a house with no heat or hot water. To say the least, I was a little stressed. I walked back into the house from the car, felt so defeated about being sick and having no hot water or heat…and clicked on my e-mail account to read the good news. It could not have come at a better time to cheer me up.
This week was a little better than that – although I did have a very pricey surprise car repair this week, which I was stressing out about, and last night I was worried about the $30-odd dollar ferry tickets it took to get over to my reading in Poulsbo – having sold only one book. (It was a fun reading besides the lack of book-selling, with lots of friends, and a beautiful sunset on the way over.)
But it was a lovely and welcome surprise this morning to hear I had won a Dorothy Prize for my poem, “A Morning of Sunflowers (for Fukushima.)” Other winners include fellow blogger Matthew Thorburn. I am so grateful for any financial support from groups like the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fund that are set up to help poets. There are so many stamps, and entry fees, and money spent on classes and books along the path to being a poet, that add up – this kind of gift can go a long way in helping a poet afford to keep writing.
The combination of unexpected February sunshine and this good news makes this an extra-nice Sunday! (and Happy Super Bowl, to those who observe it!)
Reading at Poulsbohemian Saturday
Looking for something to do this weekend? I mean, besides the Superbowl? Something a little more literary?
I’m reading on Saturday at the Poulsbohemian at 7 PM with fellow poets Ronda Broatch and Connie Mears. Here’s the info:
Poulsbohemian Poetry Reading
When: Saturday, February 4, 7 p.m.
Where: Poulsbohemian Coffee House
Why: Ronda Broatch, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Constance Mears share their work. Plus, there’s an open mic.
I’d love to see you there!
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.
