My dear friends,
Well, I was getting better from the wrist sprain when I managed to screw up a joint in my shoulder and my old shoulder tendinosis (a degenerative condition where my tendon has holes in it) has reared its ugly head and couldn’t use my neck or shoulder for a few days. I’ve been joking with people that whoever’s been sticking pins in my voodoo doll should really stop now.
I was finally better enough today to stop lying in bed and walk around outside in the sunshine, go grocery shopping, and some other normal-person stuff. Made me feel a lot better.
I got an exciting call about a job interview next week, hopefully something works out there…Looks like I might be busier post-MFA than I expected.
No poetry news in the mail, fall is coming, and my goal is to be healthy…so, endocrinologist, rheumatologist, and physical therapist, bring it on, baby!
Finally the wrist is feeling well enough to type a little more, so I’ll write this quick entry:
-I have officially signed on to teaching two weeks of middle school students in March 2008 and one week of high school students in June 2008 at Centrum as part of their Young Artists Program. I’m excited but also a little scared…I’ll be trying to squeeze an introduction to mythology, mythology connections in comic books, and creative writing exercises all into a week. On top of this, Centrum offers the folks who teach in the program an opportunity for a residency there in Port Townsend, which will be nice. My first ever independent, non-school-related residency.
Creating a whole new twisted generation of comic book poetry fans is a fun prospect. I haven’t worked with middle-school aged kids before, should be an interesting challenge (anyone with advice please leave comments!)
-I’ve had a chance to catch up on my reading (what with the tonisllitis and sprained wrist and all – this is the upside of downtime) – some mythology texts, a pretty decent anthology of prose poems, Atwood’s You are Happy. And I got to watch some episodes of Buffy season I, which I call “when Buffy was still fun,” which always makes me happy. Even wrote a couple of poems – three in two weeks, which is pretty good for me. I’m not the poem-a-day type, although I admire the effort others have been making this August.
-The new 41 cent Superhero stamps are out at the Post Office. Elektra and the X-Men make appeareances. I now have two sheets.
A quick reading announcement:
Blogging Poet Oliver de la Paz is reading in Redmond!
Please join us for a great night of poetry and tell all your friends to come too!
Thursday, August 16 at 7 p.m.
SoulFood Books
15748 Redmond Way, Redmond, WA
Oliver de la Paz and Rick Barot read from their newest poetry collections, followed by open mic. Contact book store at 425-881-5309 for directions.
Oliver de la Paz teaches creative writing at Western Washington University. His work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly West, North American Review, and elsewhere. He has received many grants and awards, including a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. He is a cofounder of Kundiman, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to mentoring Asian American writers. Oliver’s book of prose and verse, Names Above Houses, was a winner of the 2000 Crab Orchard Award Series and was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2001. His second book, Furious Lullaby, will be published in September 2007. Oliver has a Web site at www.oliverdelapaz.com.
Rick Barot was born in the Philippines and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His first book, The Darker Fall, won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and was published by Sarabande Books in 2002. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including New England Review, The New Republic, Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has also appeared in many anthologies, including The New Young American Poets, Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University. He lives in Tacoma, Washington and teaches both in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and Pacific Lutheran University. His second book, Want, will be published by Sarabande in early 2008.
- At August 10, 2007
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In be like Colbert, sprain sux
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Blogger Break (or sprain?)
I sprained my right wrist and typing is difficult so a few days of no blogging and slow e-mail responses…sorry kiddos I’ll be back soon! (4 Weeks in splint…)
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.
