Yes, on top of finding a new place to live in a new city in a new state, plus starting a new job, I’ve been re-designing the web site. I’m going for a kind of whimsical-yet-subversive-feminist thing with the wonderful art of Yumiko Kayukawa, who kindly gave me permission to use “Zen Cracker” which we altered to make a banner (it’s actually more rectangular – here’s an online version –http://www.sweetyumiko.com/files/zencracker.gif) Her other art work is great too – I encourage you to browse her art work.
I used to have a technical site and a poetry site, and now I just have one, more writing-centered, site. (You might want to update any links you have to my poetry site, by the way…)
Yesterday was a mournful day, with the passing of Reginald Shepherd, and the eerie memories of another sunny September 11th. I spent most of the day getting rid of things. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. It turns out I’m not as attached to most of my stuff as I thought – except my books – and maybe my shoes. At night I played hooky for an hour from packing and sorting to see Peter Pereira and Rebecca Loudon read at Port Townsend’s Northwind series. They both read new work that I really loved. Peter has so much good energy it just radiates when he reads, and Rebecca is always electrifying (plus she had really great hair last night – I was all, how does she get her curls to lay like that? I know, a really serious poet shouldn’t have been thinking about hairstyles.) So that was a nice poetry break in my insane-moving-world of right now.
And I have to learn new educational software for my job and read two textbooks before the class starts! OK breathe, breathe, breathe…
So, let me know what you think of the new site, and if you find any problems or missing links, tell me!
So, here I am back in Port Townsend, with not an apartment/condo to my name in San Diego yet. And we’re supposed to be out of here by the end of September. I’m not a person who likes to be unsettled like this, which you might not believe from the evidence of me moving around so much, but it’s very true. So I hope a home rental opportunity of some sort comes to us soon…(Remember, any friends in San Diego’s Northern County, keep your eyes open for me!) Yes, I’m on Craigslist for hours a day already…
It’s hard to concentrate on the poetry world with the new job, new place to live, packing up the house, redoing my web site, etc, but I wanted to post a couple of things:
One is, Kate Greenstreet has interviewed herself for her series of first-book interviews!
The other is quick mini-review of Collin Kelley’s chapbook, After the Poison from Finishing Line Press. (Incidentally, follow that link and you can also pick up Anne Haines’ new chapbook, Breach.) Collin angry, passionate take on Reagan-and-Bush-era politics hits hard and fast, but as you might guess, my favorite two poems were the bitingly funny “Fairy Tale Eating Disorder” (“No food is safe in a fairy tale,/ a single bite enough to stop your heart”) and the persona poem called “Patty Hearst on the Occasion of her Presidential Pardon:”
“Mama’s got her x-ray sunglasses on,
her thought control beehive sending signals,
her noose of pearls ready to lasso me home…”
Update: Check it out – Steve’s getting his first book published! Break out the confetti!
- At September 04, 2008
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In baby seals, San Diego
5
Here is a pic of the baby seal waving at me from “Children’s Pool” at La Jolla’s Torrey Pines State Park. Click the picture to enlarge.
PS I don’t have an apartment yet, despite extensive searching over two weeks online and three days in person down in SD. Apparently they are more expensive and harder to find than PO Boxes. So, know a good and affordable condo to rent in North County? Let me know!
San Diego is beautiful and hot. Suddenly my Port Townsend August (mostly 60 desgrees and rainy) has disappeared from memory – my head is swimming with blooming jasmine and curious trumpet vines along the road, the orange blooms of a pomegranate tree and the continuous trill of hummingbirds. We didn’t make it to the zoo or many of the tourist things since we were mostly checking out neighborhoods and rental places but we did go to the Quail Botanical Garden and the beaches at Torrey Pines State Park and La Jolla’s “Children’s Pool,” a quiet cove amid large waves and rocks where the seals line up with their babies and loll in the sun. I ate duck tacos (yes, they’re good!) for the first time and had a lot of California salads piled with things like nectarines and local goat cheeses and lettuces. Also, here the Mexican food has mahi mahi in it, right alongside the carnitas on the menus. Plus, everything has avocados.
I am scared of moving to California. It is expensive. They have high taxes. (Seattle’s income tax = 0% versus California’s = 9%) But moving here seems right, solid in my head as a new home-place. (As a kind of sign, my tonsillitis seemed to magically get better once I got here. Plus, I’m pretty sure the baby seals were waving to me with their flippers and smiling!) Holding my breath and taking the southward plunge next month. We look tomorrow on an apartment (right around the corner from 1. a huge library and 2. a huge post office) and I’ll try to sign up for a PO Box before we fly out tomorrow. Having an address makes it possible for me to start submitting poetry again!
Ready for the Fall?
Tampa residents – Sunday Sunday Sunday:
“Please join the Alley Cat Players this Sunday for Becoming the Villainess, our performance art piece based on Jeannine Hall Gailey’s poetry. The Alley Cats will combine myth and modern media, literature, theatrical performance, visual art, and dance in this textually and visually rewarding production.
Bridget Bean will perform Gailey’s text; Shana Perkins will dance two original pieces to the voice of the author reading her own work. The performance will be enhanced by a backdrop of projected visual artwork, all from contemporary artists who have been featured in the Journal of Mythic Arts. We will also offer a soundscape, excerpts from Beneath the Forest Floor by Hildegard Westerkamp.
We’ll be at the St. Petersburg Main Library at 2 pm on Sunday, Aug 31.
In the spirit of Art for Everyone, all our shows are free!
I hope to see you at the show!
best,
Jo Averill-Snell
Artistic Director, Alley Cat Players
“Gailey recreates myths from Persephone to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, examining the victim/villain casting of mythic women with wit, grace and insight…With her blend of colloquial and lyric language, of pop culture and ancient tradition, Gailey not only renews myth for the modern reader, but illuminates our strengths and vulnerabilities through the lens of myth.” —Fickle Muses“
Safely into San Diego, where, it seems, we have brought the rain with us! Off to apartment shop!
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.
