A little more than a week until our trip up to Seattle and Pasco, Washington, where I’ll be reading and teaching at Columbia Basin College (and making a brief appearance at RadCon) and Glenn will be putting in his time at the Redmond campus. Despite the fact that I’ve finally graduated to foot exercises (toe curls and ankle spins, exciting stuff!) I’m still not able to put much weight on my right foot (the doc said some tendon damage where the break happened is slowing me down – tendons take longer to heal than bones, apparently) and the right hand is still really painful (tendon damage there too, they said) but the rest of me is healthy so as long as I can get around, wheelchair or crutches or whatever, I’m planning to go do regular poet stuff as much as possible – including, hopefully, visiting a few friends, Open Books, and other fun Washington stuff. Of course, it probably won’t be seventy and sunny up there the way it is here, although I can always keep up hope for unseasonably warm, dry weather up there…
I’ve been trying not to be too discouraged about my situation, but it’s pretty tedious being stuck in the wheelie-chair with a cast on my arm – I want to run and jump around!…I’ve been keeping a steady stream of library books coming and going by the bed. Yesterday I read my review copy of Denise Duhamel’s new book, Ka-Ching! I just love her work. I’ve been reading Seven Days in the Art World, which I also loved, an exploration of MFA programs and art auctions and studios with a great chapter on the studio of Takashi Murakami. Also I read two books from the Gossip Girl series. That’s not improving my brain, I know it. And I have two Haruki Murakami novels on hold. I should be getting my online class materials ready for my “Advanced Poetry Workshop” in April, but the class development software doesn’t work with Vista, which is what my laptop runs, unfortunately. I’m sooo looking forward to Windows 7! I want to install the beta pretty soon. Of course, I’m looking even more forward to walking and having a regular working right hand again! Two to three more weeks for the bone, they’re saying…and another month or two for the tendons. Until then, feel free to send me lengthy comments, e-mails, letters, poetry news, etc…I can’t type a ton, but I can read all day long!
Well, today there was good news and bad news. The good news was, I got a couple of leetle checks in the mail – one a check from Ninth Letter for my poem (thanks Ninth Letter!) and the other a royalty check from Steel Toe Books (Thanks Tom!) Considering this is the third year of the book’s being out, I’m happy the book is still selling! Considering the economy (and other expenses, described below) every little bit helps.
The bad news is, I can no longer get up and down to my apartment (for the first couple of days I did crutches, but then I hurt my hand and now can’t do crutches at all. (Poof!)
A necessary addendum to yesterday’s post, in which I may have been a bit cranky (because, I don’t know, I have a broken foot and a sprained hand and live in a multiple-story walkup, perhaps…? And my husband’s company is announcing layoffs and oh, yeah, no pay raises this year at all…)
Because I was disappointed in Jon Stewart’s response to our inaugural poem, I knew Colbert would come through for poets, and now I have even more of a crush on him than ever. And Elizabeth does pretty well too:
Elizabeth Alexander on the Colbert Report
(Thanks to Kelli A. for the link)
Yes, the inauguration was beautiful (especially Aretha’s singing.) I was happy that Obama chose to have a poet read at his inauguration. It was sad to see so many people streaming away as fast as possible as poor Elizabeth Alexander read her poem, and sadder still to hear Jon Stewart poke fun at her last night on the Daily Show saying “I’m no laureate, but shouldn’t poetry rhyme?” Really, Jon? Honestly! Colbert had Pinksy on his show, and you don’t even know what “free verse” is??
But the poem itself lacked…the things that I usually tell new poets make up a good poem. Imagery. Specifics. Sound effects – not just rhyme, but onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhythm – seemed totally lacking in the poem. There wasn’t enough sensory data to stir anything in me, really…it just seemed vague and dull. Is it hard to write an “occasional” poem? Undoubtedly. But I wonder what Rita Dove might have done with the opportunity…or Yusef Komunyakaa…or any number of other poets. (I’ve never seen Rita D. read, but I know Yusef can rock an oral recitation of poetry like nobody else…)A little flair, a little drama, a little verbal gymnastics – might have helped lift the poem a bit, to help people recognize the poem as a poem (without resorting to rhyme.) A little risk might have helped the poem too – it seemed safe to the point of boredom. But what do I know? My husband and mother point out that she probably had to have the poem approved by Obama’s people as well, so that may have influenced the poem as well. I’d hate to have politicos reading my work over my shoulder!
What did you think?
Two little pieces of news:
Robert Brewer interviews me at Poetic Asides here.
Karen Weyant kindly gives me a shout out in her discussion of nuclear anxiety at the Chautauqua Literary Arts blog here.
Thanks for all your well-wishes after the previous post. It turns out I broke two bones in my foot, so I am in a big Robocop-esque leg cast, and then I sprained my wrist using crutches. Soon, at this rate, like Darth Vader, I’ll be more machine than woman 🙂 Still got to visit the San Diego zoo when my parents came to town – thank goodness for ramps and rented wheelchairs!
Happy Martin Luther King Day!
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.
