Sorry about the lack of blog entries. Been sick again. Trying hard to get well in time for Christmas and the last residency.
On the plus side, being inside and sick helped me catch up on my Heroes episode re-watching. (Can’t wait for Monday’s new episode! The dialogue isn’t that well written, but the plot twists are clever and the overall pacing has been rewarding. Plus, the character Hiro has a blog where he mentioned Miyazaki. Geek out!) And I’ve been enjoying everyone else’s blogs – especially Miss Cornshake and her descriptions of Macdowell-land. Sounds dreamy.
Tempted to start decorating for Christmas tonight. I know it’s early…

Snowtruckless in Seattle
It’s the rainiest November on record here in Seattle. Last night around 4:45 I heard a weird sound against the window – it was ice and sleet hitting the glass. I called husband G to leave work early. An hour later we had two inches of snow, and then three…we decided to try to go to the grocery store, which was a huge mistake, because all the streets were like parking lots. On the news when we got home, we saw that the neighborhood we lived in when we first moved here, Issaquah, was unavailable – literally, you could not get there from here – people spent seven hours on the highway in unmoving traffic, cars and trucks littered the sides of the rode. Downtown was just as bad. Today, for the first time in the seven years I’ve lived here, Microsoft closed its campus. The roads are nothing but ice. Luckily G and I grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by ice and snow. But here, there aren’t enough salt trucks, no one knows how to drive in this weather, since it never does this, so G is staying home (Snow day!) and I will have to cancel my errands (Christmas shopping!) around town. Thank goodness for the internet!
In the Mail
Yesterday I received the Winter 2006 issue of Rattle, which has a lovely one-page review of Becoming the Villainess. Thanks, Rattle and N.K. Moni! Also, Tom from Steel Toe Books wrote to let me know that yet another teacher has adopted my book for a class! Thanks, again!
I watch TV like a boy?
I just realized recently that all of the marketing/commercials/ads I consume are for males 18-30. I am so strongly in their demographic in the shows that I watch, the music I listen to, and movies I go to, even the web sites I visit, that when I rented an art-house flick the other day I was shocked to see advertisements beyong “Girls Gone Wild,” the latest shoot-em-up XBox Game, and “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Wrath of Taj” etc. I don’t know what this says about me, or about advertisers. Do they just not care about women 18-30, or think we all spend out days watching “Desperate Housewives” and reading Redbook and don’t actually buy or do anything ourselves? Or am I so outside my demographic in my reading, television, radio and motion picture activities? Have any of you girls out there noticed this too?
Musical Zeitgeist
I’ve been working on my second book about Japanese fairy tales and popular culture, including a poem called “Crane Wife” about a crane who transforms into a human and marries the man who saves it, and recently I read about a band who did a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock(TM) album called “Crane Wife” about the very same Japanese folk tale. The band is called The Decembrists. If only I was a vaguely-folkish-alterna-rock band, I would have beat them to this! It’s a decent album, but the first track is the best. Isn’t that always the way?
Dustup at Foetry: Tupelo Press and form letters
The recent trouble a-brewing over at Foetry over the fact that the entrants to Tupelo’s Open Submission period received form letters about their manuscripts instead of personalized critiuqes makes me realize how thankful I am for the few editors who, when I was first sending out the MS of Becoming the Villainess, really responded to my manuscript, when I was a finalist or semifinalist or whatever, with specific comments about the work, about whatever poems they liked or what they thought worked. Even a one-page letter makes a huge difference, even a scribbled note in colored pencil at the bottom of a form letter, it took work on the part of the editor, and yes, proves that someone out there actually read your work.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
This year I’m thankful. I was much less sick than the year before. I finished up graduate school (though officially, I won’t be graduated til January 15, I still feel that wee-hoo! feelign of being DONE!) My first book of poetry was published. (Some people didn’t hate it, and some nice folks even reviewed it! Joy.) I wrote another book of poetry, that now I have to start thinking about publishing. Thanks for my husband, who still loves to hear me read poetry after 405+ readings over twelve years. I have a wonderful set of poet friends locally, a great group of poet friends online (thanks interweb, you grand series of tubes 😉 and a loving family. Thankful for my new kitten, who kept waking me up last night by chasing his own tail in frantic circles at 1 AM, 6 AM. Thanks for the stack of books waiting for me to review, not one of which I’m not excited to read. I’m thankful today I will stay home and be quiet, making a little food for just the two of us and the cats. Thankful to everyone who reads this, everyone who encouraged me this year with kind notes and reminders. So it’s the rainest month in Seattle on record. So my student loans are coming due at the beginning of January. So? I have a lot to be thankful for.
I hope you do too! Happy day of Turkey and cranberries, damp leaves, football, loved ones, pumpkin pie with gingersnap crust. All right, I’ll stop before I sound like a holiday special…
Note: For those of you shopping for poetry lovers (or those you’d like to introduce to poetry) – here’s a customized list, prepared by Kelli A. and posted by Ivy A:
http://ivyai.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-thought-this-was-neat-idea-elegantly.html

Finally feeling better…at least mostly…and able to eat solid food again. Hooray!
Thanks to Oliver, I discovered KUOW ran a show with my poetry reading at Open Books yesterday. You can get to the podcast here…http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/podcast/beat20061120.mp3
The reading on Sunday went well, despite the sickliness – it was great hearing friend Ronda Broatch read, getting friend Jenifer Lawrence’s new book and just hanging out with the island-poet-crew. A lot of fun. I decided to read the more dark poems from Becoming the Villainess, rather than all the funny ones, and husband Glenn wants me to record them for this site. What can I say? He likes the dark side 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting a few days to read and rest and maybe even write some new poems. We’re not doing anything for Thanksgiving this year, just resting and trying to get all the way healthy. Maybe I’ll get some reviews written! I’ve got a stack of fantastic books to read. Despite the complaints year after year from the “poetry is dead” crowd, I find there is more good poetry that comes out than I have time to read.
Having a hard time holiday shopping? Think of Rebecca Loudon’s (newly Pulitzer-nominated) Radish King, or maybe a subscription to 32 Poems, 11th Muse, or American Poetry Journal. Of course, for those crazy comic-book or fairy tale fans on your list, there’s always this…

Still recovering from the seven-day-stomach-flu-of-death. No real food all week. And tomorrow afternoon I’m reading at the Jewel Box Theater in Poulsbo, WA – I hope I will be cogent and no one will even notice the dark circles under my eyes! I’m going to debut some new poems I haven’t read out loud before, all about my fox-wife (kitsune) characters.
I just recorded two poems for Pebble Lake Review, the poems are going to be in their Fall/Winter issue and they are going to post them to their Audio Project. Pebble Lake is such a cool magazine. I hadn’t read either of these poems out loud before; they’re nothing like my superhero/villainess poems, and they “play” differently somehow. It’ll be interesting to see what people think of them.
I think this week I have felt a little discouraged – two “no” responses from grants, two rejections, and an overall feeling of tiredness with the process of sending out poems or manuscripts. This may also have to do with the fever and the not-eating and constant nausea. I did, however, turn in my work for graduate school, the final assignments except for the class I have to teach and my reading and thesis defense at the January residency. Wow! I think MFA programs can kind of burn you out, for two years you try to produce and produce and read and absorb poetry. At the end, you’re sort of sick of your own work and sick of talking about poetry, a little bit. But again, maybe that’s just the flu talking.

Okay, I feel I should leave you with a more upbeat message. Next week, I promise. Til then, here’s the new kitten effectively blocking the act of printing out poems.