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.

Fevery and nauseous today. After a jaunt over the water Saturday to see my dear island-bound friends (45 minute drive, 30 minute ferry ride, 20 minute drive) and back, through lashings of cold wet wind and driving rain, I started feeling – not surprisingly – achy and chilled. But it didn’t go away and I spent all yesterday in bed with nothing but crackers and ginger ale. Still not better, which makes me sad, because I really wanted to go see Rebecca Loudon do her reading tonight at Hugo House. She is one of my favorite local poets, and I haven’t seen her read in ages. Blah! Fie on this frail immune system of mine!
But aside from that, I am feeling very blessed. For one, the aforementioned island poet friends – a lovely group that has stuck by one another for several years, and continues to rah-rah one another on every success. For another, Kelli A. showed me her copy of 32 Poems (Now in Perfect Bound!) on the back of which Deb Ager kindly printed a cute little ad for my book, Becoming the Villainess. And Eduardo also gave a little shout-out for my book on his blog this weekend, which I was very cheered by even in my current nauseous state! Thanks E! These little things really add up, especially when I haven’t written a line of poetry in a couple of weeks, much less sent anything out, and I start feeling like I’m not really a writer, etc. The kindness of others can not be overvalued.
Now I’m going to go crawl back into bed.

OK, first of all, remember to vote! I did a mail-in vote, which doesn’t feel quite as satisfying as punching holes or whatever.

Back to the working world…
Just interviewed for – and I think accepted – a part-time job working with Expedia. It will be nice to have a steady paycheck again. I’ve been freelancing since I started school, but nothing steady, nothing that guarantees money in the bank. So this will be a good change, I think. Orientation on Friday! This is good, because not only is Christmas coming, but my student loans will start being due in January after graduation…and there’s this book publishing enterprise I want to start…

A call for poems…Though I have abdicated my role as editor of Silk Road recently, my good friend Lisa Galloway is still plugging away there, and is in desperate need of good poems of place! She’s requested that you send your poems to her at lisagalloway at gmail dot com. It’s a beautiful journal, so what are you waiting for?

I have been pleasantly surprised recently by reading material in new issues of the Writer’s Chronicle (put out by AWP) and American Poetry Review. In APR, a fascinating essay on the friendship of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, which had a wonderful gossipy tone that sounded genuine and invested, not creepy. In The Writer’s Chronicle, a long interview with multiple poet/editors, including the editors at Sarabande, Tupelo, Rain Taxi, and others. Other articles of interest in there too, like one on creative research.

Got to see some poet friends this weekend in the middle of a flood, a windstorm, and heavy rain. You know those times when good things happen to people you care about – a lot of them, all at once? That’s going on with me now. I think I must be good luck! Apocolyptic weather today again. Read and loved Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz – especially the prose poems telling of a young boy’s discovery of wings.

(Updated: As a reward for those of you who voted, or a punishment to those of you who did not, depending on your feelings about kittens:
Trick…or Treat?)

Hey, you say, when will Jeannine stop posting kitten pictures and start talking about poetry again? Well, today’s that day!
I got to hang out with Jennifer Thorton on a somewhat otherwise miserable rainy day, and we went to see a really fun reading by Rigoberto Gonzalez, Rick Barot, and Oliver de la Paz (my faves were a group of sonnets by Rigoberto titled “What the Dead Teach Us,” Rick’s poem “Magnolia” and Oliver’s persona poems from his book, “Names Above Houses.”) And I saw Dr. Peter there! I’m looking forward to reading Oliver’s book.
I’ve been loving The Daily Show’s Ohio episodes this week, as a former resident of the state. Tune in for skewering of “wholesome” flyover country, replete with Bob Evans references.
I’ve been trying to write a “finale” poem for the new book, sort of a breakup for the husband/wife characters, and everything I write sounds too much like Louise Gluck. I mean, I love her work, she does write some good breakup poems, but I don’t want to be all derivitive and whatnot. Sigh.
Voting coming up soon. Remember: Try to vote for the least stupid, or the least evil. Also, read those many poorly-written initiatives closely. This is where all those high-school mandated Government classes pay off!