The Golden Globes…of Poetry?
Thanks to Mary Agner for sending me this link to the lit mag Siren. They have a page on the Best New Poets and Books of 2006. (A great name for a lit mag, too!) Among the best new poets listed, bloggers Jenni Russell, Teresa Ballard, Kate Greenstreet, and Oliver de la Paz appear…and Dorianne Laux (thanks Dorianne!) listed Becoming the Villainess as one of the best books of 2006!! Well, I would say Facts About the Moon is up on my list of best books of 2006 too!
That’s a nice thing to come home to, after graduating and having one of those two-hour panic attacks about “what the heck I’m going to do next with this darn MFA?” on the ride home last night…
And this morning, I woke up to Seattle covered with snow. It’s a freakin’ Christmas card out here!

Today is graduation. My husband G and my friend Lana are up to celebrate it with me. Seemingly appropriately, the sun in shining, and although I’m exhausted – the bad beds, bad food and grueling hours can be taxing – I feel happy that it’s finished. I’ve enjoyed the readings, the talks, even teaching the class and having the thesis review were pretty fun. Highlights – Sandra Alcosser’s and Dorianne Laux’s readings, sitting by fiction faculty Claire Davis while she drew sketches of the backs of the heads of other faculty, talking to Valerie Miner and Peter Sears, listening to the new students’ readings – really good. We have a new cadre of girl-power writers – mostly prose writers – but maybe some of them will convert to poetry. Oh, and standing on my balcony and watching a comet over the ocean’s horizon. And running through the snowy sand the morning it snowed. I forget how magical snow can be, and how I’m really more of a cold-weather than warm weather person. Marvin Bell kept saying how I should get a Phd. LOL. Maybe I need a short break from school first.
I haven’t written much since I’ve been here, and trying to keep up on my freelance work in the middle of the ten-day crush of events has been tough. But hopefully I’ll write some new poems when I get home. That’s usually how it is for me – I’m more of a contemplative writer, I need those hours-long stretches of free time, apparently. We had a good panel on publishing yesterday, I got to talk to Christine from Lost Horse (who’s advice on starting my own publishing conern was “It’s like having a baby – if you think too much you won’t do it. I say, jump in!”) and Michael from Copper Canyon. I’m even more excited to start my own magazine and book publishing thing after this. I think I’m going to try an internet quarterly with a print version yearly, and then maybe one or two books a year. Still going back and forth on the POD thing.
Also, nagging at the back of head is the notion I still need to buy tickets to Atlanta for AWP (check out this awesome reading!) I’m trying to talk Tom from Steel Toe into having Mary Biddinger and I do a book signing together at the Steel Toe Books table. I think that would be much more fun than standing there by myself. Also, I have to represent Pacific at the table on Saturday. So, it seems important that I actually get there. Which, from Seattle, is proving to be complicated. Very few direct or inexpensive flights. Oh, curse you, overly complicated and expensive air travel! If only I was like my friend Alaskan ER doctor Kathy McCue, I’d be able to just hop in my own plane and fly myself there.

Watching the sand blow sideways on the beach here at Seaside, Oregon, which makes for a pleasantly myopic effect – the soft moving dunes appear and disappear in the windstorm. Tonight we might even get snow.
Last night, as part of Pacific University’s evening readings, I listened to Marvin Bell read with jazz bassist Glen Moore, and I’m getting ready to do my graduate reading in about an hour. While I’ve been gone, birds have been dropping dead in Austin, New York City had a foul stench shut down parts of the city, a woman lit herself on fire in a Seattle hotel, and apparently, the stomach flu is sweeping the nation. Perhaps a good time to be isolated in a tiny town on the coast. As long as there are no tsunamis 🙂 (There are tsunami warning signs all over town. I do have an emergency weather radio, just in case. No worries!)
It’s weird to be away from my regular life. I’m such a typical Taurus, creature of routine. I never feel as productive or social at these residencies as I want to be. Ten days is a long time to go, go, go! I’m looking forward to some quiet time when I get home.

Today through next Sunday I’m the featured poet at Fickle Muses. Check it out!

All right, my friends, I’m off to rainy Seaside for ten days. Enjoy yourselves!

Yesterday I laughed out loud while reading this sentence (from gothic novel with a twist The Thirteenth Tale) This sentence is spoken by the ambiguous villainess/heroine of the book:
“People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appalling obsession with personal integrity.”
Argue about or discuss at will.

Check out the new Pebble Lake Review!

I hope to post a blog or two from the residency, but if not, I miss you and will have plenty to post about when I get back. I wish you health and happiness til then.