Had a lot of fun last night at the Poetry International reading at DG Wills bookstore in La Jolla. The MFA students working for SDSU’s literary magazine were bright and interesting, and Ilya Kaminsky is always a kick. Got to meet the next New Issues poet on the rise, I think – Jericho Brown, whose first book, Please, is passionate and bluesy, plus, chock-full of persona poems! He read one last night in the voice of Janis Joplin that was terrific.
I read a poem from issue 12 about Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, and a couple of others. (Even sold a book – to a couple of fellow Buffy fans 🙂 One of the other readers had a few poems about translating Japanese, which I thought was fascinating. In fact, I was genuinely impressed with nearly every reader, and besides that, the people just had what I think California people might call “good energy.” It feels like perhaps I’m finally finding the literary folks of the San Diego area, slowly, maybe, but getting there. Still, there’s no Open Books substitute.
Also, a health note: a bit of constant sore throat and cough, it seems, is par for the course in October, even for die-hard San Diegans, because of the Santa Ana winds, so at least I’m not alone in that. A couple of people last night, my ultrasound tech, and countless others have told me that locals always get sick in October. I had to fire Dr. Botox Barbie (which means another round of paperwork and records fun, sigh) but found a very good doctor at the urgent care office next to my apartment complex, and thanks to my best-ever-Seattle-hematologist, the hardest working doctor ever, have an appointment with a new GP recommended by the head of UCSD Medicine. How’s that for a referral? I’m ready for a health boost!
I’m teaching persona poetry this week in my class and am happy to see that my students are really enjoying it. The power of persona 🙂
I went to a wonderful reading last night at the Casa Romantica reading series. It was a beautiful venue – I got there late, so it was dark and foggy, but during the day the venue has glass walls that look over the ocean. Sandra Alcosser gave a wonderful reading (despite a broken back – talk about a tough poet!) as did Joy Manesiotis, who read Sappho-esque fragments.
Back for some more tests this afternoon, an ultrasound, nothing painful or involving needles, thank goodness. Think good thoughts for me.
And wait for the Great Pumpkin. I’m pretty sure this is the most sincere pumpkin patch, I mean blog…Do you think the Great Pumpkin gives out poetry prizes too?
You never really know a town til you’ve been to its ER, I say. I got to visit this weekend. A new town, a new set of health challenges, this time, stomach trouble, sigh. More blood to draw, more scans to schedule. The hospital also confirmed that I had had pneumonia while I was in Port Townsend, probably for a long time, without knowing it. My lungs still have blockages! I have been breathing easier since I’ve been here, but apparently I’m not all the way better from that year-long trip to lung-trouble land.
On the plus side, I’ll be joining the reading for Poetry International on Nov 1, where Li-Young Lee will be reading as the feature! Fun stuff. As long as I can walk and talk, I’ll be there, baby!
So, yesterday I was discouraged because of the cancellation of a project I was really excited about and invested in. It was a surprise cancellation, the worst kind.
But then other things happened that put it in perspective. I literally took a day off from everything, reminding myself that not only had I just finished the difficult project (that got cancelled after months of hard work,) I’d moved into a new apartment in a new city in a new state, started a new job, and have been working very hard to stay, well, fundamentally healthy and also able to pay our power bill (higher in CA than WA, surprise surprise.) Everyone, in poetry, in life, experiences rejections, set-backs, money-crunches, health challenges. If we all just closed up shop every time a door was shut in our face, well, there would be a lot fewer successful writers. You can’t succeed if you stop trying. Right? Right. So it’s back into the saddle for me. Also, bad things happen to everyone, all the time, without warning. Rebecca Loudon had a really good interview online and talked about the nature of life and suffering. Her poetry is all about a kind of defiance. One of the powerful things about poetry is the ability to share with another human being and say “Hey, you’re not the only one who has ever gone through something like this. Hey, those dark nights of the soul may not be endless.”
And also thank you to all the kind folks who sent me encouraging e-mails and comments. More than a few of you brought tears to my eyes. No joke. So, thanks.
In an unrelated note: No Half Price Books stores in southern California. Not one! How do people survive without Half Price Books? Ohio, Virginia, and Seattle were crawling with them. This is the first hard evidence that there really is very little reading going on here in SoCal compared to other places.
- At October 23, 2008
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In discouraged
7
Do you ever have one of those really discouraging days where you just feel like quitting poetry altogether? I’m having one of those days. I’m thinking of giving up poetry and maybe taking up something useful, like restaurant hostessing.
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.
