Lost Con Weekends, a new review, and more!
I swung by two conventions this weekend (NorWesCon and SakuraCon,) celebrated Easter, visited with several out-of-town writer friends, and attended various poetry events, as well as fulfilling obligations for my adjunct teaching job at National. Turned in final proof corrections for She Returns to the Floating World to the kind editors at Kitsune Books. Have now collapsed and plan to sleep until the next poetry event. (Dreams have been haunted by people in either Star Trek or Anime-influenced costumes carrying large fake swords.)
Have a new book review posted up at Rattle:
Jeannine’s review of Susan Rich’s third book, The Alchemist’s Kitchen
So check it out!
Also received an acceptance I’m excited about from a lit mag – don’t those acceptances seem to make all the other rejections sting a little less? I still get excited when it’s a magazine I really love or a poem I’m particularly fond of – and in this case, it was both! Let’s just say the poem has a hidden MST3K reference or two in it. Killer Shrews!!!
Did I mention it’s my birthday this weekend? My mother said I have her permission to go back in time a decade and turn 28 instead of 38.
If you ever need an article to convince young writers that they must, must, must read current literary magazines if they want to be published, look no further than this:
http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/what-editors-want-must-read-writers-submitti
My horoscope is telling me to rest and relax and get away from the crowd, but my calendar keeps saying go go go!
32 Poems Fave Book Feature and More
Well, my five favorite poetry books feature is up at the 32 Poems Blog:
http://www.32poems.com/blog/2238/day-21-jeannine-hall-gailey-shares-her-five-favorite-poetry-books
May all the books listed sell a thousand copies. Great books, all of them.
And, yesterday, Kelli Russell Agodon’s five fave feature was up, which might have have mentioned Becoming the Villainess:
http://www.32poems.com/blog/2233/day-21-kelli-russell-agodon-national-poetry-month
The bad things about lists like this is I still feel I didn’t even get to talk about a third of my favorite poets. Rebecca Loudon, Karyna McGlynn, Suzanne Frischkorn, Kristy Bowen, Jeff Walt, Karen Weyant…OK, now I’ve listed another six poets that I love. And that’s just for starters.
I have a small haiku up at the new issue of Pirene’s Fountain. The whole issue’s pretty great, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil (another of my fave poets…see, the list just keeps going) is featured in it.
Thanks to a very generous donor, the drive to collect money for the Japan disaster – specifically, for Doctors Without Borders – by selling copies of Becoming the Villainess raised more than $200 for the cause. Thanks again! All proceeds will go to the charities.
More Poetry Month and a Sad Passing
I was very sad to read this morning on C. Dale Young’s blog about the passing of Jeanne Leiby, who had recently taken over editor-ship of The Southern Review. I thought she had a great vision for the magazine and she wrote me a very kind note while she was editor there. It’s a strange thing; in the age of Facebook, I said to my husband: “But she just posted to Facebook yesterday!” She was about the same age as my older brothers, in her mid-forties, and that just seems tragic and unfair.
I am reminded that we should tell all the people we admire and care for just how much we admire and care for them. I was so happy to see some of my old friends at poetry readings in the last week. Rebecca Loudon read her poem “Love Letter to the Whores on Aurora Avenue” which always makes me cry, and I saw Colleen McElroy, who spent time and energy mentoring me when I was just starting out as a writer/lit mag volunteer in Seattle – in fact, before I met her, she accepted one of my poems for my first “real” poetry acceptance (you know, outside of teen-y contests and high school mags and such.) She got up, rocking her skinny jeans and high-heeled boots, and was such a fierce poetry presence…it was really inspiring. If I could be half as fierce a poet as Rebecca and Colleen, well, I’d still be a pretty darn fierce poet.
Collin Kelley has started blogging for Poets & Writers. Check out his first post here!
During Poetry Month, I wanted to take a moment to encourage everyone to go buy poetry books from independent bookstores. Specifically, you should all buy books from Open Books, the poetry-only bookstore in Seattle. I recommend calling in and placing phone orders if you don’t live in Seattle. When I lived in California, I found myself constantly wishing I could just pop in and see John and Christine, the owners, who are always full of good advice and news, and check out the new poetry books propped up on the front shelf. For a poet, it is a magical place. Did I mention they also host some rollicking poetry readings? Lately I really enjoyed Martha Silano’s book debut readings, where she passed out little toy aliens and did physics experiments along with her poetry. I’m looking forward to a visit on May 12 when C. Dale Young will be making a stop in on his poetry book tour!
More Poetry Month Celebration – Busy busy busy
If you haven’t signed up yet for my poetry month book giveaway, do so now! And here’s Kelli’s links to even more poetry book giveaways!
Tonight I’m going to go see Susan Rich, Major Jackson, and Brian Turner read and do a Q&A together downtown as part of Seattle Arts & Lectures. This Sunday I plan to attend a reading with some of my fave peeps – Susan Rich, Kathleen Flenniken, Rebecca Loudon, and Colleen J. McElroy. I’m only attending like, 1/100th of the poetry events going on around Seattle for Poetry Month, yet I have something to attend almost every single day. Not to mention that Sakura-Con and NorWesCon are both going on next weekend, which means lots of socializing in a short time with out-of-town friends.
I’ve also spent some time each day proofing my manuscript (with help from other poet-friends and family members, whom I thank profusely) and teaching National U’s MFA program’s April/May advanced poetry workshop. I’m lucky to get one poem written a week in April, much less a poem a day! No time for loafing or leisure – it’s April! Ha! (I’m also formulating an idea of doing a class on speculative poetry on my own. Seems like there are lots of speculative poets but not a lot of speculative poetry classes!)
Hope to see some of you down at Benaroya Hall tonight!
More About Japan
And here’s a little bit about risk and probability and what we can learn from Fukushima – thanks for the link from Dorianne Laux.
The bottom line is, for companies, human costs are usually not as important as profits, and therefore, nuclear stuff isn’t built as safely as it should be.
Roland Kelts writes a beautiful meditation here on how physical distance from the tragedy has been affecting him: http://japanamerica.blogspot.com/2011/04/disaster-and-distance.html
Disaster narratives have been woven into the fabric of Japan’s art – ancient prints of giant waves hanging in museums, numerous tsunami-savior stories told to children, stone tablets set in the ground warning people not to build below a certain point. The famous Gamera and Godzilla movies, where the monsters were metaphors all about the ravages of the nuclear threat. I heard several versions of the following story, called “The Burning Rice Fields,” while I was researching “She Returns to the Floating World.” Here is one version of it I found online. The version I originally heard involved some self-sacrificing cooperation between an elderly farmer and a fox, and it inspired this poem from “She Returns to the Floating World.”:
“The Fire of Foxes”
In another story a man lights a fox on fire to save others, to warn them of tsunami. The fox is a willing partner, burning brightly in the night to tell the village and his own people to flee. The men and foxes see the fire and run. The water comes and swallows the burning fox, the old farmer who lit him, and all the farmland. But the families of fox and man are safe. The rice smolders underwater. The fox is rewarded with eternal life; his eyes and tail become stars in the sky. At least that is the version I have learned by heart.
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.
