Happy Poetry Month! Tulip Festivals, Poetry Podcasts, a Poem in Diode, Snow Geese – and Illness (Plus Broken Teeth) – and The Importance of a Change in Scenery

Glenn and I catch a moment of sun – or at least daffodils in a rainbreak – at Skagit Valley’s Tulip Festival

Happy Poetry Month! Moody Weather, Illness, Snow Geese, And a Poem in Diode…

First of all, it’s National Poetry Month, so it’s about time I post a poem, right? Thanks to Diode for publishing my poem “Witchcraft” in their 15^th Anniversary issue, which also has poems by friends Martha Silano and Alison Pelegrin, so check out the whole thing.

(Sneak Peek below of my poem – click to enlarge:)

Bald Eagle, Skagit, in rain

Second, I spent most of this week with the lovely combination of a head cold (not covid -we checked) and a pretty serious stomach infection, so I was mostly down for the count. We’ve had a colder, wetter April than usual here – I’m so ready for some sunshine and a little bit of above-forties temperatures. PS We got snow and hail today. High of 48. Normal average temperature this month? 70 degrees. Ha ha ha.

Third, though I was very worried my head cold would make my video podcast with Robert Brewer from Writer’s Digest a little weird, but I took some cold medicine and I think it went okay. (Also, I blame cold medicine if I say anything weird.) The podcast will go up in late May, but here’s a still from the podcast. Thanks to Robert and Writer’s Digest! I’ll post the link when it’s live.

Snow Geese in flight, mountains background

A Bit of a Depressing Week and a Change of Scenery

I’ve been depressed on top of being sick this week – had a head cold on top of a fairly intense stomach infection that required big time antibiotics. Maybe because of the cold, bleak weather, the unrelenting bad news of the world, maybe because I got a very sad rejection from the Guggenheim, maybe because I couldn’t get out and see my friends’ readings on the most beautiful day of the week because I was in bed sick, and maybe because I broke a tooth (again!) and the antibiotics they put me on have a side effect of “suicidal thoughts and depression.” (True story! If you feel depressed, check your medications for side effects to see if that could be the reason.)

So Glenn decided to take me on a quick trip to see the Tulip Festival Saturday, even though it’s mostly daffodils and not tulip fields yet. See picture at beginning of post. We also did not dress appropriately for the weather! At least I had on snow boots to protect against the mud (not pictured.)

Snow Goose Crowd Closeup

It was weird weather – bright sunshine, then hail, then overcast, then snow, then rain, then clear again – but we did see some snow geese which have usually already migrated by now. A small miraculous thing.

Sometimes a change in scenery can help the spirit. It can’t make me have a normal immune system, or keep my teeth from breaking, or stop wars or pandemics, or even keep it from snowing in April, but I have so many medical appointments coming up, it was nice to have some brief sunshine and cheer. (Even though there was hail and snow and a broken tooth.)

Glenn and I with yellow and pink tulips

Allowing Yourself A Little Brightness in a Time of Storm/Stress/Mourning/Illness

Since I haven’t been able to travel much for the whole of the pandemic due to being immune compromised – starting on our third year now – I doubly appreciate being able to drive without too much trouble to such beautiful scenery. I have to get this broken tooth checked out, I’m due for two separate MRIs, I have like eleven blood draws I need to schedule, and it’s easy to let that kind of stuff take over your life when you’re chronically ill and have MS and other multiple physical problems, plus aging. Literally the time and energy it takes to stay alive feels overwhelming.

How do we make space for brightness, for the possibility of joy, when we are worried about a war across the world, or about waiting for test results, or a root canal? How do we make space for poetry? I’ve been trying to write a poem a day this week, but haven’t felt super inspired. So when I couldn’t write, I tried to do a submission, or read some poetry instead.

Daffodils and Tulips

When life keeps handing you problems, pain, rejection, and challenge, prayer/meditation/spending time in nature/purposefully changing your scene can seem stupid, like a waste of time, but these things can also remind us that life isn’t all suffering and pain, give us a much-needed sense of perspective, wonder, gratitude. In my opinion, hospitals should have mandatory garden/kitten/meditation time for recovery, which seem almost as important as giving our bodies antibiotics to fight an infection – we need a little spiritual/emotional help to encourage healing too. A sensitive, empathetic mind that focuses not only on their own pain but everyone else’s too needs to spend equal time around beauty, peace, happiness. The news does not report on this, but look – snow geese have recovered from almost extinction to the largest population on record, and even in the wind, hail, rain, and snow, there are moments when the world stops her sulk and storm and gives us sunshine and flowers.

Next week, I plan on a post with advice for the beginning writer – the last time I did one of those posts was some years ago – especially for National Poetry Month!

Happy April – National Poetry Month (and My Birthday Month,) and Seeking Inspiration

More art from Dewi Plass

Happy April – National Poetry Month (and My Birthday Month)

How is it April 2022 already? The cherry blossoms and early magnolias are blooming, the tulips are about to come out, and I’m about to turn another year older. I hope you love this piece of art by Dewi Plass, which features hummingbirds, a moth, and a fox. After seeing her art in Roq La Rue, I ordered a few art cards from her web site, and they did not disappoint.

I just finished writing up a review – my first in a while – of Dana Levin’s Now Do You Know Where We Are from Copper Canyon Press, and I’m hoping to read some more new work this month, as so many good books debut.

I’m also about a year out from the debut of my next book, Flare, Corona, with BOA Editions. Now that I have an author photo sorted, I’m turning to other things, like finding cover art and blurbs.

I’ve been taking a peek inside a few local galleries to see if there’s anything thematic that might work, but while I haven’t seen anything perfect for my book yet, it’s been great to see art in person again. I’ve also noticed some weird local art popping up – in Kirkland, wondering through one of the little streets with three cupcake bakeries, I saw this cat skateboarding and this glass and metal piece that reminded me of DNA. Here also is my own shot of a typewriter with fallen cherry blossoms.

Jeannine with pink Star Magnolias, Kirkland

Seeking Inspiration in Kirkland and in Connecting with Friends

I’m trying to write a poem a day, since I haven’t been writing as much lately, and seeking inspiration inside the world that’s still in a pandemic and a war. So I wanted to connect with some friends via phone and explore neighboring Kirkland, which has a beautiful waterfront with Lake Washington, and seems buzzing and friendly, at least when the sun shines.

I’m not healthy enough to travel or get in big crowds yet but I am, as you may see, making an attempt to get back into the world while covid levels here are low enough. As the UK and Asia struggle with another surge, I’m sure one is coming this way too, but for now, I’m getting out when it’s sunny (even when it’s not warm) and enjoying the flowers. I’ve enjoyed talking to friends this week about AWP as well as their travels and travel plans. Being immune compromised, I can’t be quite as adventurous, but I’m glad to get the news of the outside world, adventure by proxy. Meanwhile, I’m exploring different neighborhoods, capturing signs of spring.

Tulip Magnolias

Almost April

So, in family lore, I was supposed to be born in May, but I actually arrived on the last day of April – and was almost named “April.” I wrote a poem about it that was published in Tinderbox Poetry Journal. So I’ll leave you this week with a poem…Happy April!

Not at AWP Post: A Seattle Writer Walks through Plum Blossoms, Japanese Gardens, and an Art Gallery

Not at AWP: A Writer’s Week with Plum Blossoms, Art Galleries, Japanese Gardens, plus Wood Ducks and Deer

Not at Philly’s AWP this week, still avoiding crowds due to the covid-19 thing and the immune-suppressed thing. But I did try to spend the week paying attention to things that fed the spirit and inspired. When spring finally appears in our area, we get these rare sunny days when everything is in bloom and people smile and say hello to each other.

So I went for a walk through a bunch of plum trees in bloom, which smell amazing, and the petals fell down in the breeze. There are also cherry blossoms, and the daffodils have started to open, and so I spent time in the garden, trimming back maples overgrowth, giving the new apple and cherry trees more space and more mulch, and weeding and planting a new pink container “cutting” garden with things I haven’t grown before – snapdragons, carnations, cupcake cosmos, celosia, godetia. Tulip and star magnolia trees are starting to open as well. The air smells like spring, even in the rain.

The news remains grim. My social media feed is full of book signings and panels, friends who are traveling to beautiful places, or people raising money for Ukraine refugees showing pictures of destruction and bombings – it’s enough to give someone emotional whiplash. It’s hard to stay oriented, much less focus on writing or submitting poetry. The spring flowers and deer visitors (we also had a bobcat walk through again) are good reminders that there is still beauty and wildness around us. I miss seeing friends at AWP – my social life has been mostly phone calls for two years – but at least Seattle gave us some warmer, sunnier days so that we could stop and appreciate the beauty of where we are now.

A pair of Wood ducks at the Japanese Gardens

Date Night: a Visit to Seattle’s Japanese Gardens and Roq La Rue Art Gallery

This week I was working on a book review, and Glenn and I turned in our taxes, so we decided that we needed a break and had a “date afternoon” during one of our rare March sunny days this week. We visited the Japanese Gardens for the first time in a long time, where we were lucky enough to see pairs of Wood ducks, and the camellia and azaleas were in first bloom.

Then we visited my favorite Seattle art gallery, Roq La Rue, for their “Jungle” multi-artist show (click this link to preview that art). This was our first visit since they moved to a new location in Madison Valley, across from famous vegetarian restaurant Cafe Flora, and it’s a beautiful, airy space. I bought a book on women and surrealism (which somehow my art history class skipped) but missed out on my favorite painting, of a tiger surrounded by birds and butterflies which had already been purchased – cool to discover a new artist to love, though. I’ve missed going to art museums and galleries over the last two years; I’ve forgotten how much I love to be around visual art. Taking steps towards living a “normalish” life again. And I’m looking forward to AWP Seattle next year, when I hope it will be safer to attend.

It is so easy to feel depleted by the news of the war, by the feeling of missing out, by all the things we have lost in the last two years, or even just daily routines that have become ruts. Plant something new; go see some new scenery; pick up a new book on a subject you don’t know that much about. Rest can be about more than just napping; it can be making space for things that rejuvenate us. Spring seems like a good time to try breaking out of routines that have become stifling. Wishing you lots of blooms, deer, and possibly a bobcat!

Despite Everything, Spring and Solstice; Choosing an Author Photo Every Decade; and Reviews and Reading Reports

early pink cherry blossoms

Despite Everything, Spring and Solstice

We’ve had a colder March than usual, and it’s been gray and rainy, but in fact, spring is springing around us, despite war and pandemic and other apocalypses. Jonquils and hyacinths are up, and the early plum and cherry blossoms are starting to appear. I’ve heard more birdsong; my garden, mostly still asleep, is showing signs that it is actually a garden. And how is it the Spring Equinox already?

Here are some pictures of a red-winged blackbird singing, my small weeping cherry, and some white cherry branches. Meanwhile, my refrigerator died, the third pandemic appliance death in three years – this is getting expensive. At least the new fridge models are more energy efficient and easier for me to access. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the rain, which I’ll talk about later, and more exciting – I posed for my first author photo in over ten years. Now I just have to decide on one.

Choosing an Author Photo Every Decade or So

Along with spring, there’s another seasonal ritual that must be performed every decade or so: getting a new author photo done. It just doesn’t feel right to use a photo that’s more than ten years old – ten years ago I was so sick, before my MS diagnosis, barely able to walk or eat anything. I wasn’t in the same place I am now. My hair had less gray in it – and for that matter, I hadn’t started my pink hair color phase yet. So I thought, for my upcoming book with BOA, Flare, Corona, I’d do an updated author photo. I was pretty nervous because I’m a writer, not a model, and not as spry as I used to be, either. But I thought: let’s do it and then I don’t have to do it for another ten years! Heck, I think Louise Gluck used her mid-forties author photo (she looked fantastic in her mid-forties, I can remember) for at least twenty years!

Anyway, I had a great local photographer, Char Beck, out and we took pictures with a cherry tree across from my house. Anyway, if you want to help, here are the four final contenders. You can leave your vote in the comments: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, or Photo 4!

Mask-less visit to Molbaks, spring display with pink bicycle

In Other News, Reviews, Mask Mandates, Donna Tartt Reading Report, and More

So, Washington State’s mask mandate was lifted a few days ago. Glenn and I weren’t up to trying a restaurant yet, but we did make a spring pilgrimage to our favorite gardening store, Molbak’s, and bought herbs and flowers to plant. It was so nice to be able to smell things again! But I’m mostly staying masked up for the time being. While our covid rates have really dropped, especially in my county, we’re staying cautious. But it does seem like we’re getting closer to a post-pandemic period, doesn’t it? As we get better, newer treatments, and maybe even better, newer vaccines, we won’t erase this virus – it will continue to mutate and appear in waves for a while, I believe – we will not have to live in quite as much fear. I hope.

I’m trying to review a poetry book for the first time in a while – Dana Levin’s Now Do You Know Where You Are, from Copper Canyon. Exercising those reviewer muscles again. The book has made me cry three times. It’s also one of those books you really need to pay attention to and read the notes at the end of the book. It’s not a book you can skim easily and that also might make it more rewarding.

Spring tulip display at Roozengaarde gift shop

I also finished my mother-daughter book club read, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I had read this book and loved it in my twenties, but as I read it this time I read it as a writer – like, I think Donna should have made the main character a woman from the South, not a man from California, not only because I think women writers have a tendency to “male up” their protagonists to be more “accessible” or popular with male critics, but also because some things didn’t ring true, either the male or the California aspects – and I think the book could have used more humor and pop culture references. The eighties were so much fun, it seems a shame to leave out references to, I don’t know, Prince or Madonna or John Hughes movies or something. It’s also a bit of a slog in the middle – not exactly paced right for a psychological thriller. Like, you don’t want the reader thinking, she could really have edited this part out, or doesn’t this seem repetitive. (I had a similar reaction to The Goldfinch.)

It’s interesting to revisit books you read in your twenties – at the beginning of the pandemic, I re-read Middlemarch, which I hated in college, but actually enjoyed it in my forties. Maybe The Secret History is really a twenty-something’s kind of book. Anyway, I also have been on a Hitchcock bender the last year, and I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this book and the Hitchcock thriller, Rope. (Check it out if you haven’t. A really great turn by Jimmy Stewart as an amoral philosophy professor.) And actually, between this and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, The Pack. Funny how those things turn up when you read. I also really saw more parallels between this book and Flannery O’Connor’s Southern gothic moral fiction (I hadn’t read any of Flannery’s work in my twenties yet.) So, though it took some time, it was actually a captivating book with really beautiful sentences that not only reflected the dark mood of the world right now but also made me think about questions I hadn’t in a while: does fiction have to be funny? Does it have to teach us something? Do you need any likable characters? I would say if you compare this book to her classmate’s book, Less than Zero (which also was really devoid of humor – gosh, did Bennington College in the eighties knock the humor out of its English students or what?) you can see that though Less than Zero made more of a splash, I think Secret History had more of a lasting influence on other writers.

Next up on my reading list is Rapture and Melancholy: the Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’ve already enjoyed taking a look at her pictures (saved by her sister, who passed away at 90 in 1989) and reading about her amazing self-confidence as a young person. I loved Edna St. Vincent Millay as a teen, and I still enjoy reading her poems out loud – she’s funny and bracing and has great musicality. I’m interested how her diaries – and life trajectories – compare to other women poet’s diaries I’ve read in the last few years.

The Apocalypse is Knocking, First Cherry Blossoms, Cats From the Past and More History Repeating

It’s the apocalypse, but a haircut and four fillings later…

The Apocalypse is Knocking

The Apocalypse feels like it’s knocking at the door. Are we going to answer?

The picture at left was taken this week after 1) spending two hours getting four fillings in my front teeth and 2) getting my hair cut and colored. These things are a total waste of time if a maniac ends the world in nuclear war or the pandemic kills me. Yes, I think about weird stuff like that. How do we respond of existential despair and threats of war and pestilence? Do we think harder about how we spend our time, our money, our love, our votes?

So, in a way, every act – going to work, kissing your spouse, petting your cat, is an act of rebellion against nihilism. Stopping to take pictures of trees – something I started doing when I was diagnosed with terminal cancer over five years ago (I was told I did not have six months, FYI…always get a second opinion, kids!) – is to make a record of the beauty as the world continues.  Until I stop, or it stops. My philosophy.

Speaking of that, I saw the first cherry blossoms this week in Kirkland, and I also photographed another early spring bloom, quince. Quinces look like ugly shrubs in the winter, and then they have these beautiful blooms and fruit. I’ve always liked those kinds of things. Apple trees with their twisted arms and shrubby height, how fragrant their blush petals are, their fruit that hangs on ’til September. Bulbs that when you plant them seem like nothing, brown little lumps, then bring their tulip petals and daffodil trumpets during the cold early spring. So here are some pictures of March flowers. Are you writing poetry, or sending it out, or getting ready for AWP? Good job. I have been struggling with poetry’s relevancy in the last week or so, I admit. It feels…frivolous. Extraneous. I know that it is good for the soul, but maybe my soul is feeling a little fractured right now.

Me posing with brand new cherry blossoms. I don’t know what my great-great grandmother looked like at my age. She probably didn’t have pink hair. I wish we had more pictures of her.

Cats from the Past – and More History Repeating

Remember how last week I mentioned how history seemed to be repeating, with a pandemic and the threat of world war starting in Europe? My mother has been going through my grandmother – who died of covid in November of 2020 – things, her keepsakes, letters, books, pictures. One thing was a letter my mother read me from my grandmother’s aunt to her brother, my great-great uncle Jean (whom I may be named after) to check how he was doing with his case of the flu in 1922. He was dead by the time the letter arrived. Even though the Spanish flu was declared “over” in 1920, people were actually dying of it i 1921 at as high a rate as they had a year before, and of course it also spilled into 1922, obviously. (One in ten Americans died of the “1918” flu, FYI. A great account I read earlier this year was “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” by Katherine Anne Porter) Does that sound familiar? People were tired of caring about the flu, people were still dying of it, but the burden of worry and grief was too much. The world shrugged. Sorry for this sad story from my family history with echoes of our covid tale. Let me tell you a happier one.

My mother also found a picture of my great-great grandmother Elizabeth’s kitten. It was a sketch signed by the artist, and also had the name “Fifi” inscribed on the picture. The weirdest part of this is that the kitten very much resembles Sylvia: fluffy, blue eyed, white with gray points. Is my kitten a reincarnation of my great-great grandmother’s childhood pet? Did this picture register in my childhood mind when I saw it at my grandparents’ house and cause me specifically to adopt a kitten someone else was looking to rehome because she was eccentric, hard to care for, destructive and sickly? I don’t understand time loops and reincarnation among cats, but all things are possible.