Verse Daily Web Monthly feature!

Check out who is up at the Verse Daily Web Monthly Feature this month of May! Thanks Verse Daily – a great post-birthday surprise!
And thanks for publishing the featured poem, Qarrtsiluni!

Winners!

At May 01, 2010
By Jeannine Gailey
In poetry book giveaway winners, Ron Lewis, Teresa Dowell
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The winners of my poetry giveaway contest are Teresa Dowell and Ron Lewis! (Ron, you didn’t leave your e-mail address, so leave a comment with your e-mail address when you get a chance so I can contact you. If Ron doesn’t contact me by Monday, I’ll do another random generated number and pick another winner!) Thanks to everyone who left a comment – I wish I could afford to give away books to all of you!

Birthdays, teaching Poetry, The Big Poetry Giveaway

At April 30, 2010
By Jeannine Gailey
In 37th birthdays, grateful, poetry book giveaway, teaching poetry
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Yes, blowing out thirty-seven candles makes one philosophical – and wishing this month I had written thirty-seven poems. This morning, the blue sky over Napa had reappeared, the birds chirping happily at my window. My stomach’s been acting up again (mysterious autoimmune tummy problems, boo!) so I couldn’t have the usual birthday-related food celebration but I have so many other things to be thankful for: wonderful friends, a really cool family, nice weather returning, and my husband waking me up with presents! My mother bought me a beautiful reading notebook from Mayapple – but she went above and beyond by having it custom-done in hot pink leather with my initials on it. And, by chance, my husband bought me a beautiful pair of sandals in hot pink to match (by the way, these are the first sandals I will have worn since the foot-breaking incident, so, yay for increased shoe-wearing options!) I got a boatload of books – on poetry, the Manhattan Project, Supergirls…and a couple of nifty kitchen things that I wanted. We had also recently hit a library book sale and therefore have way more books than I can possibly read in reasonable amount of time, plus all my bookshelves are already overflowing.

Over the last two years, teaching at National University’s MFA program officially and doing poetry consulting unofficially, I’ve thought about how difficult it is to really share anything about poetry. Some things – specifics versus the vague, surprises versus cliche, and form – those are the easy basics. But other things – the exact way a manuscript should come together, for instance, is full of nuance, or the key to finding a way to each poet’s unique way of looking at the world and getting that into their poetry – are trickier. They’re more empathetic, intuitive. And how to steer around your own poetry prejudices, which you might not even be aware of? It’s an art, not a science – I just can’t have people go off and memorize facts, though I can (and do) encourage them to read, read, read, to get poetry into their brains. Maybe that’s the most important thing you can do as a mentor – get people excited about the poems you’re excited about, and help them see why they are exciting.

Tomorrow is the drawing for the poetry book giveaway, so if you haven’t already entered, today is your last day.

PS I believe it is also a Pink Moon. So the pink presents are doubly appropriate!

Poetry Parties, Meeting Bloggers, Poetry Work

At April 27, 2010
By Jeannine Gailey
In April poetry presents, grading, poetry parties, poetry work versus poetry writing, querying, Rachel Dacus
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This last weekend I was lucky enough to go to a really fun poetry party, which featured, among other things, some pretty interesting alternative-folk-cello music, and where I got to meet Rachel Dacus in person! Rachel and I had been “online” friends for some time, but it was great to actually see her and get to say hi. That’s one of the best things about blogging, finding these cool people you might never have met otherwise. Anyway, it definitely was a good weekend for poetry socializing, although on Monday I just shut myself away and graded all day to make up for it. I have two thesis advisee students as well as a class called Advanced Poetry Workshop on my hands this quarter, so I’m still not all the way finished.
I’ve sent out some queries for book reviews and now must force myself to send out some poetry subs before the dreaded May cutoff time. Also send in to some open submissions and maybe apply for some fellowships…Have you every noticed how much more poetry-related work we do compared to actual poetry writing? I’d also like to write another poem or two before the end of the month happens. We were supposed to go up to Seattle this last week of April, but instead we’ve had to postpone it for another month or so. So I look forward to celebrating with my Seattle friends soon, just not as soon as I hoped. I guess May/June is a less rainy time to visit the Northwest, anyway, so it probably works out.
If you haven’t yet updated your link to my new blog, please do it! And if you haven’t yet entered the poetry giveaway, do it! After all, it’s almost my birthday. Maybe I’ll win someone else’s poetry giveaway! Or a nice big book contest. That would be a great present! Come on Universe, what do you say?

Reading good books, more poetry event-ing, gluten-free and okay, writing and publishing are two different things

As a reviewer, I get sent a lot of books for free. And I have a lot of friends who are really good writers who also send me books. This week I read a book that I not only enjoyed, but also felt something of a kinship with, since the author and I share an interest in femme fatale heroines and their sad fates, sci-fi time-travel, and nostalgia for the eighties. I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl is not only a wonderful read, but feels like a book I should have written. Dang it!

Continuing to celebrate National Poetry Month with even more poetry-related social events this weekend. Hopefully they will be fun! The sun has finally come out and finally visible are the products of spring – bunches of red-and-orange roses (this must be a Napa Valley obsession – red and orange roses are everywhere – on the walls of restaurants, in front of run-down homes, on street corners) – my primary care doctor’s office has become picturesquely draped with wisteria blossoms – and pink dogwood bloom in the tiny yards of of row houses. Thin asparagus is cooking on the grill, along with bulbs of fennel, almost every night. The minute I get diagnosed with a gluten intolerance, the local cupcake shops starts carrying gluten-free cupcakes, a week before my birthday. I mean, how could things not be looking up?

I wrote a poem I am really proud of this last week, but I’m not ready to send it out anywhere yet. I’m ready for another book to be published, I’m downright impatient actually, I’m ready to take on more work for more money, I’m ready to be healthy and get on with things in general. I feel madly in love with my husband – we’ve been married for 14 years, so you know what? That’s pretty cool. And I’m happy with my weight for the first time in a long time (I’m such a chick, but guess what? I cut out gluten and I lost a significant amount of weight in a matter of weeks. I recommend it! New weight loss/health advice book by me: figure out what the hell the foods are that you can’t digest and stop eating them. If you need to see a nice gastroenterologist who specializes in immune-system-related gastro problems like I did, so be it. It’s worth the time and trouble.)

So how much of my life do I have control over? I can try to get more freelance work, I can send out queries, I can send out my book manuscript in a poetry world surely crammed with the manuscripts flooding in after AWP. I can go and read new books of poetry and get inspired, go see poets read and get inspired, do things – like reading and writing – that reaffirm that I actually like poetry. That’s what I’m all about in this last week before I turn – gulp – 37. I’m going to do the things I can do and try to enjoy those things and not worry about the things I’m not in control of. I’m going to write new poems, they will be poems that take risks and allow me to try new things.

And if you haven’t entered my book giveaway yet, leave a comment here.