Holiday Weekend Bits
Open Books has a very kind write-up (plus a sample poem) of She Returns to the Floating World here.
If you are interested in reviewing She Returns to the Floating World, well, now’s your chance – Rattle has a copy and is looking for a reviewer! Info here: http://rattle.com/blog/available/
Had a chance to entertain my poet friend N (newly arrived from the East Bay back the NW) and show her around Woodinville (including the two potbellied pigs at the Herbfarm garden!) during pitch perfect sunny-low-humidity-mountain-is-out Seattle weather. It was a beautiful day and lovely to visit.
Now we are considering going to visit one of the local waterfalls. (It was either that and ick, clean up the house and work. Not appropriate activities for Labor Day Weekend, especially with this kind of weather.)
And I’ve set up a reading in October with my artist friend Deborah Scott and her latest exhibit. I’ll post more about her fairy-tale-themed exhibit soon!
And in case you missed it the first time, Escape Into Life calls my poems “heat sparking” – go check out their digest!
Say Anything Thursday
September 1, or Say Anything Day!
Well, for all you folks who are still in love with Say Anything, Cameron Crowe has posted new deleted scenes from the original script on his blog. I love this movie more now than I did when I first watched it, because I understand some of the subtext of talking about success in blue collar, Boeing-dependent Puget Sound. (This was pre-Microsoft-taking-over-Redmond, of course.)
It’s September, so no more “it’s August, the last summer month in the Northwest” procrastination is allowed. In the last 24 hours, I revised my “Robot Scientist’s Daughter” manuscript, updated the acknowledgments page (three accepted poems since last month!) and sent out a packet of poems. This makes me feel like less of a slacker and more like a real writer.
I am still working on my gigantic job application for desired academic job #1, and I’ve gotten into a sticky wicket where I’m wondering whether the sample syllabus should be my actual syllabus from classes I’ve taught or something else? (Anyone out there with advice, I’d be grateful to hear! Like, do they really need all of the grading and ethics information on there, or just the content stuff?) It also requires a writing sample (do I use poems from both books, or new work?) and a letter of something called a “commitments to creative writing and poetics” statement (no idea what something like that is supposed to contain. And I call myself a book critic!) Whew! My tech writing job applications are way easier to do.
I’ve been angsty about whether I’m doing enough to promote the new book, and how much is too much, and how many readings to schedule and where, and I realized that though having a book come out is something to celebrate, it can also provoke a lot of anxiety. My first Seattle reading will be on the 25th of September at Open Books, my very favorite bookstore of all time, so if you’re my friend and will be Seattle that day, come by and wish me luck! Or better yet, stay for the reading (at 3 PM.) I’m putting together the reading list for that, too, and practicing the new poems out loud. I heard Obama will be in our fair town that day, and I told him it would only be a 45 minute reading, and afterwards we could go out for gelato, so I hope he shows 🙂 I think it would be good for poetry and for presidents if presidents went to more poetry readings. Plus, I’ll read about politically important subjects like nuclear environmental challenges. Fun for everyone!
Today I’m nervous also about going to the dentist for multiple fillings (ouch!) and excited about seeing my friend N who is back in town tomorrow. It’s always good to see old friends. Not sure I can say the same about the fillings!
Tuesday Confession: In Which Things Don’t Get Done, Feminisms, and Closed Doors
Updated: I had two nice poetry world things happen today that caused me to rethink my grumpy post, so I decided to delete the evidence of grumpiness. For those of you who missed it, sorry!
PS You should still read Celia’s excellent post, I am a Feminist poet, here. I think all that stuff still applies.
Positive Movement Versus the Whirlwind
So instead I try to make headway on my projects at hand. Having no classes this quarter, I’m applying for part-time contract work and teaching jobs. I’m working right now on a bear of an application that requires pages of statements and samples. I try to make a little headway each day. I’m also working on a book review of a difficult book. Yesterday I wrote two paragraphs of the review, not too substantial, I’m afraid, but enough to say: I made some positive motion on it. I finished a poetry consult project. I’m trying to create a sane reading schedule this fall, but of course all the readings want to fall on the same weekends, invitations to read out of town inevitably all come for the same three day period. I’m excited for the upcoming readings – the chance to finally introduce my new little book to the public, officially – but of course, nervous as well. How will these poems play to an audience? Which poems should I choose for which reading? I’m trying to design afternoon workshops for teenagers, a talk for community colleges on superheroes and mythology, and something on speculative poetry for a general audience. I’m trying my hand at a little fiction, and I’m still writing poems on radioactive elements (apparently, I thought I was done, but I actually wasn’t. The news on Fukushima makes it seem alarmingly relevant and demanding all over again.)
Tuesday Confessions about the End of Summer
Since the last time I posted, I’ve hosted a party at my apartment and went to a summer concert in the zoo. A social whirl, and it was the hottest weekend (of course!) of the entire year! Sorry, those who came, that it wasn’t a pool party – and that I lack an ice vodka bar!
Here’s a pic of me doing my best Sylvia Plath impression pre-party. Not the suicide part, the part where she rocked being a domestic-goddess-type-in-cocktail-dresses. (Glenn is actually the talented sushi-and-cupcake maker. I’m just appearing in frame.) My favorite thing about the party is that I got to see my artist friends and poet friends and fiction-writer friends all in one place. I wish that happened more often!
We also saw Aimee Mann at the Seattle zoo which was fun, as it had settled down to a comfortable 77-with-breeze by the time we arrived at the zoo, and we enjoyed the meerkats and ocelot cub and other beasties pre-concert. Aimee Mann is a consummate performer – I’ve seen her a bunch of times in a bunch of different venues. She always wears the same kind of outfit – what I call a “cool poet” look – skinny jeans, cool jacket, knee-high boots, and black glasses – and gets up, performs, chats in between songs a bit, and thanks the audience. She’s professional, laid-back, lacking the drama that might usually be attached to pop stars (or poets.) I wish I could pull that off at my own readings. No big whoop, no drama, just get up, perform, thank everyone, get off stage. Note to self.
In poetry news, my book She Returns to the Floating World is now available for $3.50 on Kindle. An e-book! That Kitsune Books is a progressive publisher. I don’t have a Kindle myself, so if you pick it up and see it, let me know how it looks!
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.
