Yes, while everyone else is talking about where they’ll be at AWP, I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentation “From Buffy to Xena: Female Comic Book Superheroes in Women’s Poetry” for Sunday at WonderCon in San Francisco. (Sunday, 12:30-1:30, in the Moscone Center, room 204/206, in case you’re wondering!) It’s not traditionally a poetry venue, perhaps, but I’m hoping it will be fun and some people in the audience will find out that poetry can be, well, something different than love songs and nature odes. Right? And I’ll be wearing my Wonder Woman costume. Just kidding. April Fools!
Anyway, I hope you poets at AWP keep us all up on the gossip going on it the poetry world on your blogs – and I’ll be sure to post if I accidentally run into Kevin Smith or something.
In other news, The Beastly Bride is available today from Amazon and other fine booksellers. This is the anthology that Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling edited on tales of transforming women – one of my favorite subjects – and it happens to have three poems of mine on the old French fairy tale, The White Doe, in it – three poems you can’t find anywhere else! It’s a great gift for any daughters, sisters, or friends who are even remotely interested in mermaids, selkies, or women who change into any manner of trees or animals. It’s mostly fiction, not poetry, and did I mention it’s a really fun collection?
Very excited to have a poem in the “Dossier” section – on the 1970s – of the newest issue 7 of Court Green, a magazine that, like MARGIE, I feel proud to be a part of. The poem right before mine is by Adrian Blevins, “The Hospitality” (I love her work!) and selfishly, I couldn’t ask for a better poem to sets up my poem, “Knoxville 1978: The Girls Next Door.” You can tell a lot of thought went into the order, and a lot of the poets are kind of the famous/hipster variety (except me, of course 🙂
Health stuff is boring to blog about, I know, but I’ve spent – and will be spending – a lot of time this week commuting a couple of hours at a time to specialists at the big-city teaching hospital, because my immune system seems to be acting up and attacking my GI tract and liver. Good times. I’ve never had a liver problem before, it’s one of the organs that has been trouble-free, so I’m disappointed to see it causing problems, especially since I’ve never drunk alcohol (I’m intolerant, genetically – yes, you’ve finally found a poet who doesn’t drink!) and avoid even minor liver-hurters like Tylenol. On the sunny side, at least I’m losing weight! Anyway, think good thoughts for me, I have to face some major blood tests and I’m sooo tired of the needles. I try not to spend too much energy worrying, you know, positive energy and such, but the fact is, it all takes it’s toll – the poking and prodding, the questions, the medical records, scan and test.
My big nervousness, though, is that I have to give this presentation next week on Poetry and Superheroes next week (Sunday at noon on April 4th at WonderCon) and I’m still a bit wobbly on my legs (the torn ligament et al are healing up, but I still have trouble with stairs and balance) So wish me luck on that too! And come if you can. WonderCon should be a blast if you’re even the least bit geeky. And wish me some people to show up to the talk and maybe even buy some books (to offset those awful San Fran parking and hotel room costs…)
One of my poems is up – as a podcast and a “readable” poem – at qarrtsiluni today, for their “Health Issue:” “Advice From the Robot Scientist’s Daughter.”
And, it’s congrats in order for the girls today! January O’Neil, Nin Andrews, and Allison Benis White all had their books nominated for the Foreward’s Book of the Year Award in Poetry! Nice!
Are you worried that your poetry is boring? If so, read this post from Martha Silano!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and some congrats to a few bloggers…
Eduardo C. Corral’s wonderful poem, “To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage,” is up on Poetry Daily today.
Say congrats to Charles Jensen and Brent Goodman who were both nominated for the Lambda Literary Awards.
So, to borrow the words of a song, “Let’s Hear It For the Boys!”
Seriously, all three of these guys are great writers, and I’m happy to see them getting accolades.
As for me, I’ll try to wear some green and avoid malicious leprechauns.
In celebration of Tim Burton’s new Alice movie:
Alice in Darkness
Forget tears. Chasing
white animals with timepieces
in this drug-trip landscape
can only lead to more of same.
Hedgehogs, playing cards, paintbrushes:
full of undisclosed danger.
Didn’t your mother tell you
not to kiss strangers?
That Cheshire smile shouldn’t fool you.
Pull your skirt down.
Your nails are growing so fast
you’re hardly human.
Alice, fight your version of Bedlam
as long as you can.
Sleep the sweet dream away
from that gooey looking glass, or mushrooms,
or the fear of your own body.
Forget what the night tastes like.
Stop wondering through the shadows,
holding your neck out
for the slice of the axe.
Verdict: Liked. Definitely a movie you’d enjoy more on the big screen. Surprisingly, I also liked the SyFy channel’s more modest version of Alice as well – both were versions of the story where a more empowered grown-up Alice re-enters Wonderland to become a hero. Burton’s was a more straight-forward Joseph Campbell “Hero(ine)’s Journey” while the SyFy version dealt more with political intrigue.
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.
