Webbish6

First of all, thanks to all of you who left wonderful responses to my last blog post – funny, encouraging, thought-provoking. I should always post about rejection and depression – I get such good insights! I injured my back last week right after the post, and had to be away from the computer, basically flat in bed doing nothing. Ironically, this made me feel much better and more productive.

For those of you interested in Kate Greenstreet’s series of interviews – here’s a switch – Kate is on the other end of the interview table in this! (PDF file: http://www.saintelizabethstreet.org/iss5/greenstreet_intrvw.pdf)

Chapbook Mini-Review

Lana Ayer’s chapbook, Love is a Weed, from Finishing Line Press.

Lana exhibits both wit and passion in this collection, which has poems that imagine Dorothy touring Italy after her return to Kansas, Atlas’ wife controlling the weather, Violet after George Bailey commits suicide in an alternate “Wonderful Life” reality. In between myth and fairy tale are poems of a couple’s travel from first love to affair to breakup, and all the stops in between. Lana is at her best when her dry sense of humor and turn of phrase work together, as in “Dorothy Does Italy:” “Jolted from her reverie by a timid waiter with tinder-blue eyes,/ she nods yes for another espresso and wonders if tonight’s the night/ her ruby dancing shoes will raise one hell of a memorable gale.”

I sent out two submissions which took what seemed like superheroine strength, to Swink and Alaska Quarterly. Now I am going to shape up and print up my second book manuscript for another round of submissions.

Here’s a link to Rebecca Loudon’s Sylvia Plath party!

And again, no pressure, dear readers, but there’s a free copy of my book hanging around with Galatea Resurrects and it’s waiting for a reviewer… http://grarchives.blogspot.com/2007/08/available-for-review.html

At February 06, 2007
By Jeannine Gailey
In Mary Biddinger, Post-MFA blues, Rejection Slips, The Atlantic
13

Does anyone write nicer rejection slips than The Atlantic…

Since they’ve gotten a new poetry editor? Yesterday in the mail, on typed heavy paper, was the following note:

Dear Jeannine Hall Gailey,
Diverting poems, especially those that find you flexing your wit – after sifting through submissions upon an afternoon, I’m inclined to think that maybe we should all take a leaf from your little brother and read more poetry that doesn’t begin with I. Alas, our backlog is diabolical at the moment, and we’ll have to pass with regrets. Many thanks all the same for the chance to see more of your work.
Sincerely,
David Barber
Poetry Editor

It was very clear the editor had actually read and responded to the poems, (including a reference to a line in a poem “My Little Brother Learns Japanese” which goes “He reads poem/that do not begin with ‘I’”) which is a rarity these days in the cold literary mag market. Not only that, he responded in a timely manner, with mild encouragement but no promises – a perfect kind of rejection. I mean, if the Atlantic, who gets hundreds of thousands of submissions a year, can be so civil, in a note that got back to me in less than three months – why can’t other literary magazines do more than an inch of printed paper with a pre-printed “Thanks but no Thanks” after ten or eleven months? It makes me want to submit only to places as nice as these guys. Tell me your “best rejection slip” stories – share your stories of nicer-than-expected editors. Let’s praise those who make an effort to actually encourage us!

The Post-MFA Blues

I don’t want to discourage anyone in the middle of an MFA program, or those who are thinking about attending. But I will say that since graduation, I have experienced more of a letdown/depression/slow leaking out of hope than anything I’ve experienced since my total health breakdown of a few years ago. What I wonder is, Why? I didn’t go into an MFA program expecting really anything out of it, except for time to write (which I got – enough to finish one first book and get a good start on a second) and some feedback and encouragement (which I got, wonderful feedback from wonderful mentors.) I didn’t expect graduating with some extra letters to change my life, land me a dream job in publishing or academia, or some kind of mystical “now my writing life can begin” aura. But still, now that I’m out, and settling into the daily grind of freelance work for “the Man,” house-related chores, and writing without deadlines or feedback, I feel less inclined to write or submit, I double-think new poems or chuck them. I don’t want to send my new book manuscript out. I think I’m stuck in a negative-thinking pattern, and I don’t know how to get out. Any advice from others who’ve got through post-MFA blues?

In answer to the above, see The Atlantic’s article, So You Want to be a Writer?

And, go check out Mary Biddinger’s new book cover!

Updated: Monday
Martha Silano and my workshop in Bellingham has been cancelled! Sorry to those of you we won’t get to see. Next time!

Thanks to Steve Mueske and his Poetry 365 project – my poem “My Little Brother, in Parts” is up on the Poetry 365 web site – click here to read it!

Congrats To Kelli Russell Agodon, John Poch, and Allen Braden on their Dorothy Prizes!

I promised more mini-reviews:

J.P. Dancing Bear’s chapbook, Gaceala of Narcissus City and Other Gacealas, Main Street Rag. This handsomely-produced, matte-cover chapbook is a collection of “gacela” poems, which are based on Lorca’s interpretation of the Arabic ghazal form; I believe “gacela” is Spanish for “gazelle.” (I could be wrong. Let me know!) Anyway, back to the poems: J.P. Dancing Bear’s voice is edged with humor and bite, and the forms he uses aren’t a constraint but rather a way to allow him to write with a certain amount of detachment and surrealism. For instance, in one poem (“Gacela of Consumer Apathy”) he moves deftly from cosmetic testing on animals to the destruction of tiger habitats to an imaginary rabbit heaven. A skillful, mournful collection.

In other news, I’ve finally switched to the new blogger with barely any scars. I was a little nervous.

Self-Promotion, Bellingham-Style – Children’s books for various holidays – and an interview with Catherine Brady

All right, Bellingham-ians! We need a few more people to sign up for the Jeannine Hall Gailey/Martha Silano tag team Village Books Workshop or we’re going to have to cancel!!
You have til Feb 5 to sign up – but the sooner the better – here’s a description of the workshop:
Time: Tuesday, February 6, 2007 6:00 PM
Location: VB Readings Gallery
Memory & Mythology: Transforming the Personal into Poetry.
Join poets Jeannine Hall Gailey and Martha Silano for a night of workshopping (one poem by each participant will be discussed), two short generative writing exercises, and the sharing of work by poets (such as Louise Gluck and Li-Young Lee) who transform personal experience into powerful and moving poetry. Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess and Martha Silano is the author of Blue Positive.

Call Village Books today at Tel: (360) 671-2626 to reserve your spot!

A thought-provoking interview with Catherine Brady (bringing up such salient post-MFA worries as: how can I get a job teaching if I have no teaching experience if no one will let me teach because I have to teaching experience? And what about the state of book publishing today?) on the After the MFA blog.

I’ve been a little blue since my Aunt passed away on Monday night. I realized that even though I believe in an afterlife, it doesn’t always help – I still can’t visit my Aunt any more, or call her on the phone, or see her IM ID pop up on my computer. My husband G took me out to cheer me up, since I won’t be able to go to the funeral, to celebrate her life. My most vivid childhood memory is when my Aunt flew my whole family out to visit her in Colorado, the first time I’d been there, for Easter. This was when my Dad was a struggling assistant professor with four kids and my mom was still in school, so we would never have been able to afford a trip like this. The sky was beautiful and clear and the mountains were so unlike the low, tree-covered Smoky Mountains that I was used to. She bought me and my brother these amazing sugar-eggs, with little scenes inside, just like my favorite Easter children’s book, “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes.” (It’s a story of feminism, hope, struggle, and ultimately, love. Check it out if you have kids, or even if you don’t!)
This reminds me: For Valentine’s Day, go out and get a copy of the beautifully-illustrated children’s book, “The Valentine’s Cat.” It’s about a starving artist whose life is changed by a chimney-sweep cat with a curious mark on his forehead. And no, it’s not the mark of the beast. Here’s a link to The Valentine Cat on Amazon

More mini-reviews in the next few days…

I’ve been researching rents, neighborhood crime statistics, and pet policies. Not for fun. You guessed it, we are moving – again. The nice people who own our condo actually want to live it in now, so we have to skedaddle and find a new place to rent. In Seattle I never hope to own unless I win the lottery or the MacAurthur or something (practically the same odds, I bet.) It’s overwhelmingly expensive. We have moved about six times in seven years, which can be a little wearing. Although, we have gotten to visit some cool neighborhoods – Bainbridge Island, where I commuted to work by ferry, and Sammamish Plateau, when it still was overrun by quail and deer instead of condos and strip malls, which gets about five times the snow as other neighborhoods. I hope to find another neighborhood for a more extended visit. Please God, at least two years this time? I hate boxing and sorting and packing and all the discombobulation that goes with moving so often. Although it forces you to break ties with your stuff – a healthy exercise.

If you or some poet you like lives in Bellingham, be sure to sign up for Martha Silano and my workshop at Village Books on Tuesday February 8th. (I know, $20 a pop for a workshop is steep – but it’s two poets for the price of one! And I have a handout with real poems in it!) After the workshop we’ll be hanging out and getting drinks and enjoying the town.

My aunt is in a coma but breathing on her own. She’s two years older than my Dad. Thanks for those of you who’ve sent good wishes. Things like this are so unnerving. I don’t like losing people.

A few mini-reviews of chapbooks I’ve been sent or acquired:

Alan King, Transfer. This small self-published chapbook from a 25-year-old slam poet in Maryland defies expectation – the poems don’t let the reader off easy, they shine lights on issues of race and class and gender, and there’s a great moment when men in a barbershop consider 9/11 with the right balance of unease and grace. The juxtaposition of casual overheard language and song lyrics and the prickly insights of the internal life of the speaker make for interesting reading. When talking about violence between men and women in a poem called “perceptions,” the speaker imagines himself “protecting her/ from anglers she will mistakenly see/ as angels” Other poets make appearances in this chapbook (AI, Maya Angelou) as do nightclub scenes, Al Green, and, oddly, Steve Irwin. Entertaining and slightly caustic, I look forward to more of King’s work.

Kristy Bowen, The Archaeologist’s Daughter, Moon Journal Press. I was a huge fan of another of Bowen’s chapbooks, Errata, and so was happily anticipating this work. This collection, published two years before Errata, is more narrative and less experimental than Errata, without the feel of collage in that chapbook, but it brings up many of the same themes. Bowen conjures up the life of a young woman (perhaps the speaker’s grandmother) at the turn of the last century, examines archetypes of women transforming (Mermaids, Daphne) and women who bring destruction (Witches, Guinevere, Helen of Troy.) The same sense of a femininity singed with rage and oppressive shadows sang through this collection. I can’t wait to get ahold of Feign. Kristy Bowen is the next big thing. Trust me.

Wanton Textiles by Reb Livingston and Ravi Shankar, No Tell Books. This collaboration between two poets has the immediacy of reading someone else’s heated e-mail exchanges, but with a heightened imagination and lyricism you would generally not expect in an e-mail. The two poets playfully employ sensual imagery and undercut this with unexpected comedy. Some of the entries read like travelogue, others like lovers’ confessions filled with flip innuendo; for instance, “My Wilted Turtledove, my mate in linguistic perpetuity, you are the impetus for lace and dictionaries, you are divide and tangled…Hope you have shoe soles thin enough for this./ Love, Reb” and the next page’s response: “The whole shoal charges changed. Halleluiah! I’ll ogle you from the next drifting feather./ Yours, Prometheus in Drag” A fun collection!