Trying Not to Get Discouraged…
Okay, well, 2011 hasn’t quite shaped up to be a banner year so far…birds falling out of the sky, mass fish deaths, and a small girl, a young female congresswoman, and a judge were just shot out of the blue at a public appearance today. Plus I’m still on crutches thanks to my sprained ankle, and unable to eat much due to my food allergies (hello, rice and potato, I’m totally sick of you now!) which the doctors are still in the process of figuring out. By the way, an extreme elimination diet is a great way to lose weight in the new year!
I did send out a submission or two, but generally I’m feeling hesitant to ask for readings for my new book, and feeling somewhat weirdly reticent about sending out poems as well. Maybe it’s general overall life discouragement seeping into my poetry life.
In Seattle we’re experiencing a bizarre cold snap, with highs this week supposedly in the twenties, and snowfall called for on multiple days. I heard Georgia was getting snow too. So add weird weather into the things that seem inauspicious for the beginning of 2011…
Adam Deutsch has been blogging about the phenomenon of big poetry publishers asking for (mostly poor poets) people to fund them. I’ve been writing an article about working with micropresses as an alternative to sending checks of $25 and more to publisher contests where we get very little input back for the money, and we’re lucky to even see a copy of the winning book. Something seems imbalanced in the poetry world. Maybe I should send out a poet fundraiser letter back to these publishers, and tell them that in these hard times, if they want me to continue working as a poet, I’ll need a donation of $25 and up…and if they pledge more than $100, I’ll be happy to send them a copy of my first book! What do you think?
2011: A New Hope
Yes, I am purposefully referencing Star Wars (the original flavor – and best chapter.) A new beginning, a new hope. Isn’t that what we all wish for this time of year? Welcome 2011! Bring us happiness, health, warmth, and all that good stuff!
This morning the sun is shining though ice is still on the ground outside, I am feeling slightly better (she says with cautious optimism!) and my very first piece of creative non-fiction has been published at In Posse Review:
http://inpossereview.com/IPR_Hall_Gailey.htm
I’ve written two new poems (both very nostalgic, what’s that about?) and today is the day I plan to put together some submissions. I planned to do it yesterday, but my computer stubbornly froze and had to be doctored up. I’m afraid my little computer may be on its last legs.
My class starts back up tomorrow, so I’d better be ready for that. I’ve got my brand new Writer’s Calender open and it is reminding me of deadlines…
A Kick-Ass New Year’s Eve Post
I woke up this morning thinking about the main character from the movie, Kick-Ass. An average young man wakes up and decides he is going to stand up for good against crime, despite having no superpowers or special talents at fighting. So he puts on a green suit, goes out and almost immediately gets stabbed by one set of thugs, then run over with a car by another criminal. His injuries put him in the hospital, but sever a nerve and enable him to feel no pain. So it’s not that he doesn’t hurt himself, but he doesn’t feel it. Because of this, he goes back to crimefighting, inspiring people by standing up for the innocent, etc. (And he gets a supercute superheroic girl to really do all the hard work for him. Just like a man! Just kidding.)
This story seems important to me because the hero’s lesson is not that he can escape suffering in his search for justice, but that he must embrace it as if it does not exist. It seems that is an important lesson for me too. We can’t be afraid of suffering; we must act as if it doesn’t matter. We can’t fear pain, or rejection: we must go out and do the things we do despite those injuries, despite our inborn fears of getting hurt.
Yesterday I read January’s post on creating a Poetry Action Plan – not anything I’d ever thought about, actually, though I have a pretty regular schedule of writing, submitting, and reading that I keep to – and this morning read Kelli’s post on successful artists. And I have to admit, I was afraid. Afraid everything wouldn’t go right – that I would keep having injuries and illnesses that would be prevent me from being the poetry superhero I want to be, that I wouldn’t have enough courage to ask for readings or reviews for my new book, etc. The past two years for me have been one long exercise in not being able to do the things I wanted to do – breathe (pneumonia,) walk (broken foot, sprained ankles), eat (ameoba, food allergies)…you know, the normal human stuff. On the other hand, this last year I also finished up a fourth book manuscript I am very proud of and had my second book accepted by Kitsune Books. I am ready to be fearless, to put on my super poet suit and walk out and fight for poetry without thinking about the pain. I need to embrace my inner Kick-Ass-self.
We moved back to Seattle in part because it is where we both feel the most at home. It is a place that honors bookstores, coffee, that embraces art and oddballs. Where they have a sci-fi museum and a poetry-only bookstore. Already, since we have been home, I have felt stronger, more embraced, fortified somehow. Part of this is because of the good friends I have here, the contacts with artists and poets I admire. I hope in the new year to make even more friends, to strengthen a connection to the communities I love, to help young people love poetry, to bring poetry to people who think they hate poetry.
I am wishing us all a 2011 of more health, more prosperity, more peace, more connection to each other. And not to fear pain, or rejection, or failure, but to act as if those things are not important, as if they cannot hurt us, to not allow those things to be obstacles in our paths.
White Post-Christmas and Happy Almost New Year
It’s almost the New Year, and I’m on day eight of no solid food (still getting tests for food allergies etc. No fun!) Despite this, I’ve been madly productive, finishing up an article for Poet’s Market on Micropresses, finishing up a manuscript consult for a terrific book of poetry, generally responding to e-mails from students and others, finishing up Christmas business.
We’ve already taken down the tree when low and behold this morning we woke up to a late white Christmas, silver downpour on our trees (though I heard sleet at about 4 AM in the morning against the windows – so hard it woke me up.) Right now it’s snow showers, snow showers, with a white sky above. Haven’t written or sent out much poetry, which I intend to do as soon as Glenn finishes my Christmas present – a submissions tracking database. Then I just have to find some good places to send to.
These are some of my wishes for the new year:
–Health (sooner rather than later would be nice)
–A big happy welcome for book #2, She Returns to the Floating World, when it comes out in July.
–Dare I say: placing MS #3 and/or #4?
–Financial grace (jobs, fellowships, awards, freelance work or etc…)
–a permanent residence, perhaps?
It was nice to read Kristy Bowen’s post here on how her attitude towards poetry and “the po-biz” has changed over the past few years. I feel now, embarking on the launch of a second book, with lots of published poems in lots of wonderful literary magazines over the past seven or eight or so years, with my part-time working teaching poetry, that I am lucky and blessed, not in so much of a rush, with less anxiety. I spend more time thinking about how to help others, how to move people ahead to their own best next steps, how to calm their anxiety about writing or sending out or etc. I think about how trends change, how people in charge of things shift, how more women my age are starting their own magazines, presses, etc. I feel that spending time writing, a life devoted to writing, is a gamble, a gamble that we can’t know is worth it until the end, maybe not even then. I can’t say to anyone else, yes, for you the gamble is worth it or not, but for me, right now, yes, it is.
Christmas Cheer and Thankful Things
Well, readers, it’s really important at this time of year to keep up our Christmas cheer, and so, courtesty of Cute Overload, a tickle puppy! (Santa, can you bring me one for my stocking?)
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.
