Home safe with the power back on, thankfully, though 200,000 on my side of town, including businesses down the street and houses up the hill, are still without power. And we’re in a cold snap.
Thanks for all of your good wishes – I think I’ve recovered now, even done some laundry, though our fridge and freezer – and the local grocery stores – are practically empty.

It’s one of the last days to ship things by priority mail and have them arrive by Christmas. Remember, Becoming the Villainess makes an excellent Christmas/solstice/Festival of Lights/Beethoven’s Birthday present! (…end self promotion)

…Later that night…

With things back to normal, I got a chance to finally flip through a few books on my review pile, including Kate Greenstreet’s amazing Case Sensitive, and Ivy Alvarez’ touching twist on the Demeter and Persophone mythology in Mortal, as well as Rebecca Loudon’s unique take on the Amelia Earheart story, Navigate. So many blogger’s good works, so little time…I have to complete some Expedia freelance work by the 20th, and then help a friend with her web site, but after that, I’m free to settle down to reviewing. Plus reading two other students’ theses manuscripts so I’ll have useful things to say at their theses reviews. And making up a class handout for my talk. Sigh. At this rate I’m never going to have time to submit a set of poems, much less a manuscript. I’m hoping things settle down after January.
In other news, a couple of poems up at http://www.poemeleon.org/ along with poet bloggers Mary Agner, Rachel Dacus…and my publisher, Tom Hunley? I swear that guy is following me around!
And I just found out I’ll be reading at the 2007 Seattle Poetry Festival. So that should be fun!self promotion>

Posting this morning note from a hotel in downtown Seattle after the power on the East side of Seattle (including in our home) has been out since Thursday night. Bellevue, Redmond (yup, Microsoft was out of power,) Woodinville, Kirkland, Issaquah – everything was shut down, one of the two bridges to get us to downtown Seattle was shut down because of wind damage and half of the roads to get us to the highway were blocked by fallen trees, and there were a lot more trees leaning on wires. it wasn’t like we could drive five or ten minutes and find a restaurant, movie theater, grovery story – there was nothing for as far as we could see. Also, we were almost out of gas and there were no gas stations open except over the one working bridge, which was jammed with traffic. A little harrowing. When we got to the hotel, we flipped on the television and internet to find out what was going on. Power after the worst of the storm was out to 1.5 million people. The problem with wind storms here is there are so many trees – with none too strong roots – three people were killed by falling trees on cars and homes, and a woman was drowned from flood waters during the storm. Some of Boeing’s planes were shown stacked on top of each other. Sirens we had heard on the East side and downtown. And, of course, floating drawbridges which are creaky with age don’t do so well in 50-60 mile per hour winds and waves. We still don’t know if our power is back on, but the hotel (actually, all the downtown hotels) are booked up tonight, so we’re going back. At least when we got here yesterday afternoon we were able to take a hot shower, walk around outside in the little bit of sunshine we got, and we found a wonderful smelling bakery where we hung around drinking hot tea and coffee. Anyway, it reminded me of the hurricane we experienced when we lives in Virginia, the baromoter dropping to 20, those big swirls on the radar, the power going out and sleeping, under extra blankets, listening to things bang against our house and the wind howl. Worrying about our older neighbors in the cold (it was supposed to snow/ice last night) and trying to figure out how fast we had to throw out food.
Note to self: keep emergency gasoline can in garage.

Note to anyone planning to come see me read at Ravenna Third Place Books tonight: the reading has been cancelled due to weather. The readings will be re-scheduled. Thanks!

We are having crazy, windy, stormy weather out here in the NW. I just got back from physical therapy where I watched tree branches blow by while I worked on my shoulder. Very exciting! I hope our power stays on tonight. It’s been off and on since yesterday.

Another MS rejection, this time from U of Wisconsin, who scribbled “Strong MS” on the note. That’s the second, note-scribbled rejection for my new MS. But it’s gotten lots better since September, which is when these versions of the MS were sent out. I think.

Thanks for all your well-wishes. I am feeling better. One of my good friends had a health scare this week. It made me realize how much worse it is when someone close goes through a health thing than when I do. It’s much less an exciting medical mystery, which is how I approach my own weird health problems – much more anxiety-provoking.

Sprained my shoulder, so have spent last two days in bed. Amazingly, all this down time – mostly spent flat on my back with no computer – has made me super productive in the time I can do computer stuff – I sent out two packets of poems, wrote a chapbook review, finished a writeup for Expedia, and read a bunch of magazines and books that had been sitting around. Oh, and finished up my Christmas shopping online. G’s parents bought me this cool book on Japanese consumerism, women, and culture. I read a fascinating chapter on the culture of cute and the backlash against it – which may be a backlash against working, independent women, and therefore, kawaii (or cute/vulnerable/childish)=feminist? No, I don’t think that’s right. But something.
First, check out Oliver’s interview with Kate. Good reading!
And check out this quote from a piece on Helen Vendler:
“Today Vendler seldom reviews poets under 50, since their “frames of reference,” she says, are alien to her. “They’re writing about the television cartoons they saw when they were growing up. And that’s fine. It’s as good a resource of imagery as orchards. Only I’ve seen orchards and I didn’t watch these cartoons,” she said. “So I don’t feel I’m the best reader for most of the young ones.”” (Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/books/review/Donadio.t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2&ref=books)
Cartoons replacing orchards in poetry. Yup. That’s what I’m all about, baby!
Shanna Compton’s Down Spooky is what I’d call “approachable experimental.” In some ways, you feel as if you have sitting down having a conversation with Shanna – a folksy, Southern vernacular type of poetry, but a little weirder, a little heightened language thrown in. Kickboxers, oreos, lip gloss, stripmalls all make appearances. Check out this stanza from “Guided Tour of the South:”
“No adquate map exists. Everybody
has always arrived wearing blindfolds.
See the foxshined faces in the kudzu?
Most of the vegetation has been bitten off by winter.”
Anyway, head on out and check out this book, which recently was made available again from Winnow Press.
Ooh, and in other exciting news, Brandi from Switchback Books sent out the info for our AWP reading – and it’s full of cool chicks – Mary Biddinger and Kristy Bowen are both in the lineup too!

A lovely crowded reading at the Tacoma bookstore Blu Wolf last night, where the crowd seemed very involved (despite the skate punks from the movie Dogma skating loudly back and forth during my reading right outside the window.) And then afterwards got to go out with lovely friends Lana Ayers (who just won the Snake Nation first book contest – yay Lana!) , her husband Andy (not a poet, and bravo to a guy not related/married to me who has sat through at least three Villainess readings now!) and Villainess cover artist Michaela to chat.
I also had a nice, anonymous e-mail note from someone who liked my poems in 2 River View an issue or so back when I got home.
And, in the mail a somewhat bemusing rejection for my Japanese-pop-culture/fairy tale MS that I sent into Pittsburgh Press during their open submission period in October – the handwritten words from Ed Ochester “This manuscript more interesting than most.” Not sure if that is a backhanded compliment, a good sign, or a forward-handed insult. Anyone more experienced than me want to shed light on that comment? I do feel sort of optimistic about this manuscript for some reason.
And speaking of Open Submissions, here’s a good list of university presses and thier submissions policies: http://www.poetryresourcepage.com/publishers/upresses.html
I’m enjoying reading Shanna Compton’s Down Spooky. More about that later.