Happy Solstice/Christmas/Holidays, A Poem in the Climate Issue of Massachusetts Review, Poetry Book Recommendations from 2021, and Things to Remember About the Last Year

Happy holidays from Glenn, me, and this polar bear

Happy Solstice/Christmas/Holidays!

Hope you all are having a safe, healthy, and as happy as possible Solstice/Christmas/Holiday! I know it’s hard for many of us, with flights cancelled, Omicron in the news, to feel any kind of holiday cheer, especially if you, like me, are far away from family this year.

But I’ve been running a steady stream of Christmas movies and music – except for that one panic-inducing day I watched Station Eleven’s pilot – and trying my best to feel as cheerful as I can. Glenn made a gluten-free chocolate “Buche de Noel” with fresh cherries which was amazing.

We are expecting 2-5 inches of snow, over the Christmas weekend, then several days below freezing, so we might be stuck on our hill, which would make getting supplies tougher, so we are prepared to eat leftovers and after that, our supply of potatoes and pumpkin seeds. But I love seeing some snow.

December cherry blossoms

But we did have a cherry tree with one branch blossoming, right on Christmas Eve; seems symbolic, like beauty’s triumph over death, life over winter, or something like that. We need anything that gives us hope these days.

The generosity and apparent ferocity of nature is always surprising. We should pay closer attention.

New Poem in the Climate Issue of Massachusetts Review

Thank you to the Massachusetts Review who included my poem “Things I Forgot to Tell You About the End of the World” in their end-of-the-year Climate Issue. I feel lucky to be in such a great issue, and the fact that it’s the closing poem of the issue.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Things to Remember, 2021 Edition

2021 was not just about the pandemic, about loss, isolation, and anxiety. Other things happened, too, remember? I went through my photos and it helped me remember some of the good of 2021. I recommend it! I also went back and re-read some of my blog posts to remind myself of happy times.

• I got into some dream journals for the first time: including but not limited to: Fairy Tale Review, Bellevue Literary Journal, Image, and Water~Stone Review
• I went to Breadloaf for the first time. Virtually, but still, pretty cool. (I was accepted on scholarship the first time I applied, but could not afford the airfare to get out there. That was many years and books ago.)
• Spent a whole week in September (was there a covid lull?) at a writing residency on San Juan Island, where I encountered many foxes and several seals.
• Discovered a new Japanese botanical garden, the Kubota Gardens, on the other side of town (wandering is a symptom of the pandemic, right?)
• Had a rare visit with my nephew Dustin from Georgia who might move up here.
• I managed one weekend during the summer’s covid lull up to Port Townsend to see eagles, deer, and my friend Kelli Agodon
• I also did two things I couldn’t in 2020 because they were cancelled: visited the Skagit Tulip Festival and the Bellevue Botanical Garden Holiday Lights.
• Had both my circulating poetry manuscripts accepted for publication: Fireproof from Alternating Current Press in California, and Flare, Corona from BOA Editions in New York. In some blog posts in the past two years, you can read me despairing of ever finding the right homes for these books, but now that they have found the right homes, I’m overjoyed (and relieved!) and looking forward to launching each book. Hopefully in a post-pandemic world.

Poetry Book Recommendations from 2021:

All of these books make great gifts, and also great end-of-the-year reading, with just the right balance of melancholy and hope. I’m probably missing more than a few good ones, but these were my top picks.

Rosebud Ben Oni’s If This is the Age We End Discovery Alice James Books – Multiple timelines, string theory, Bunnicula and Rick and Morty? Yes please
Louise Gluck’s Winter Recipes from the Collective – Meandering, warm, imaginative – maybe my favorite Gluck book in years
Kelli Russell Agodon’s Dialogues with Rising Tides – Kelli’s most vulnerable, surprising book, looking at personal tragedy, ecological and political anxieties,
Katie Farris’s A Net to Catch my Body In Its Weaving – Heart-wrenching poems that look at mortality and the body
Sandra Beasley’s Made to Explode – once again, the political meets the personal in Beasley’s latest book
Sally Rosen Kindred’s Where the Wolf – Fairy tale poems with an edge
Shade of Blue Trees by Kelly Cressio-Moeller – a melancholy, beautiful book with an elegiac mood

Finding Holiday Cheer, a Few Thoughts on Poetry and Publicity, and a Few End of the Year Book Suggestions

Glenn and I with Bellevue Botanical Garden lights (pic by Michaela Eaves)

Finding Holiday Cheer When the World Seems Cheerless

I have, like a lot of people, have been having a hard time finding Christmas spirit – or any kind of holiday cheer – when you’re separated from your family, when the news is one bit of bad news after another – Omicron is more contagious, ignores our vaccines and some of our treatments, it’s spreading rapidly, and so many people have covid fatigue that it’s probably going to roll through the country during the holiday.

But it’s important, even for people like me who are immune compromised, to find a way to cling to things that bring us joy, in the safest way possible.

For me this week, it meant getting together with my artist friend Michaela Eaves and going to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see the impressive lights, which were cancelled last year. And yes, seeing all the beautiful displays and being outdoors and walking around catching up with a friend really did cheer me up. (We had a brief break in the monotonous rain for about an hour before it started raining on us again, thankfully.)

Me and Michaela, with holiday lights, Bellevue Botanical Gardens

So if you can catch up and do something celebratory outside, with loved ones and friends, I say, do it. I know I’ve spent way too much time over the past two years 1. cooped up in my house and 2. seeing almost no one to ward off any seasonal blues, and despite Omicron, I have optimism in new treatments for people like me (like the upcoming Pfizer antiviral, among others) and more available testing, despite all we don’t know yet about the new variant. Be aware that I have lots of vaccinated friends and family – vaccinated AND boosted – who are still getting covid. Most of them have mild cases, but a few have been hospitalized. People are losing parents, again this year, to covid. So it’s not wise to totally blow it off, throw away your masks, and host a ton of large indoor gatherings. Visit safely by testing right before visits with instant tests, meet somewhere with good circulation (if it’s your house, open windows and run air purifiers), or even put out an outdoor heater and bundle up to celebrate outdoors. I am being cautious – having groceries delivered again, for instance, putting off in-person medical appointments – but I may try to brave the Woodland Park Zoo before the end of the year!

Peacock display at the Bellevue Botanical Garden Lights

A Few Thoughts on Poetry and Publicity

So there was a lot of talk this week on social media about poets and publicity. There was a Twitter thread that basically said that some poets that were well-known and well-respected were those things because they had paid $25,000 to publicists to achieve that. (And also that some people buy their own books on bulk on Amazon to get their numbers up for some reason?)

I think the bulk of the negative reactions were 1) a purity test for poets that we don’t hold fiction and non-fiction writers to (they often hire publicists with no static) and 2) a class envy response – who has $25,000 to spend on promoting a poetry book? Most of us do not. My first thought was “$25,000 is a car!” I didn’t grow up wealthy, and don’t consider myself someone who could easily justify coming up with that kind of money to promote my books. Heck, I have trouble spending $150 on an online ad for my book!

But, having interviewed a few publicists for my book PR for Poets, and having researched book publicity, there’s really no reason a poet can’t hire a $25,000 publicist – although most publicists don’t work with poets, don’t know poetry’s markets or reviewers, or just don’t see enough money in it to do it.

Fire breathing dragon light display, Bellevue Botanical Gardens

Am I pretty excited to have a publisher for my seventh book who has an in-house marketing and PR person at last? Absolutely. I’m used to doing everything myself, with varying results for varying amounts of time, energy, money, and hustle. I think that’s the experience of most poets – getting together their own mailing lists, asking bookstores for readings, maybe even sending out their own review copies. The prospect of marketing a book during a pandemic – which is something a lot of my friends have already had to do – is daunting indeed. There are already whispers of cancellations of people and publishers who had been planning to go to AWP 2022. I already took a class on Instagram to get that account going before my two new books come out. I do take this stuff seriously.

I am hoping AWP 2023 – which is, yay, supposed to take place in Seattle – will be safe. I really enjoy seeing my old friends – and I’d love to meet my two most recent publishers in person – the editors at Alternating Current and BOA Editions. And do a reading or two, take friends out to see parks, bookstores, and coffee shops.

So, when I wrote my book, PR for Poets, I said for most poets, spending more than $5,000 – the going rate for a publicist for one month – on promoting their poetry book probably doesn’t make sense. Most royalty rates and poetry sales will rarely net more than $1,000. (It’s happened for me on a couple books, but certainly not all.) But if someone has the money lying around, and they really want to advance their poetry careers – big fellowships, tenure track jobs, visibility that makes them more likely to get well-paid speaking and teaching gigs – I mean, who am I to say they shouldn’t?

Poinsettia Tree made of lights

A Few Book Recommendations for the End of the Year

I did slightly less reading this year than last, but some books had a real impact on me and I feel I can recommend them strongly – as gifts, and just for anyone looking towards a quieter next couple of months of reading. These recommendations do not include poetry (for now):

Fiction and Non-Fiction:

The Equivalents by Maggie Doherty – Tremendously inspiring account of women artists in the sixties.

Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland – An art-world thriller that is also a remake of the classic Rebecca.

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott – A film-noir flavored book about the life of an author, the stresses of race and skin color in the US, and maybe also a ghost story? The National Book Award winner.

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda – Speaking of ghost stories, this is a feminist, comic collection of takes on Japanese traditional ghost tales.

Red Comet – Heather Clark – A must for any Sylvia Plath fan – it will keep them occupied for a couple of months.

Redmond Towne Center Candle decorations

All of these books make great gifts!

Have a safe, happy, and healthy holiday!

Happy (Pandemic) Holidays, More About BOA and upcoming books, and Wishing You Health and Safety

Glenn and I in silly holiday outfits – with dinosaurs and Xmas cats

Happy (Pandemic) Holidays!

Happy holidays and thank you for the kind wishes on my good book news last week. I am so excited. It’s nice to have some happy news in the midst of all the stressful news about the pandemic and crazy killer weather. More boosters? More variants? Killer tornadoes in December? Higher than ever covid levels? Excuse me while I breathe into this paper bag.

I’m not going to be home this year, as due to my immune system problems I’m avoiding travel, but I will be seeing some (vaccinated) friends to make it feel at least a little bit like the holidays, going to see some lights and hopefully getting some holiday cheer going.

Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a little word of caution: Due to the fact that I’m seeing more and more vaccinated friends and family actually getting covid – I advise being extra careful, a little more instant testing, and asking the host to open a window or two if you’re visiting in someone’s home.

Pink Hair on the Kirkland waterfront

Glenn and I are trying our best to keep ourselves feeling bright during Seattle’s “Big Dark” – with cold rain and complete darkness by 4:30 PM.

This is a tough time in the Northwest, especially during a pandemic when we can’t get together and huddle for warmth in coffee shops and bookstores and concerts and museums like we normally do. Hence, we resort to silly Christmas outfits as you can see, and extra lights on the house and deck. I’ve also been known to play a Yule log on the television set with kittens and bunnies and cheesy holiday music. Hey, whatever helps you muddle through.

I’ve also been a little under the weather – not covid, just run of the mill things like sore throats and stomach bugs – but the good news is I’ve been able to read more (particularly enjoying Steve Fellner’s Eating Lightbulbs and Other Essays and Siri Hustvedt’s Mothers, Fathers, and Others essay collection, as well as Katherine Mansfield’s complete journals and letters), listen to more audiobooks, and I think I’ve watched every classic holiday movie there is. (PS: I hate It’s a Wonderful Life, mostly because of its treatment of Donna Reed’s character, who clearly would have been better off as a single librarian.)

Glenn and I with Christmas tree and sleigh

It Happened on 5th Avenue is my recommendation for this year, with its warm and fuzzy social justice/holiday themes, but Christmas in Connecticut with a delightfully fake Martha Stewart-type figure who tries not to get caught by her overbearing boss. The main character played by Barbara Stanwyck is a joy to watch.

We also – every time the weather permits – have been seeking out the happiest outdoor holiday decor, including this sleigh with topiary reindeer at Carillon Point in Kirkland. It was a little iffy on the waterfront – a little rain, a little sun, a little cold – but it’s still good to get outdoors.

Sylvia with her favorite BOA poetry books

More about BOA and Upcoming Books

To the left is Sylvia posing with some of her favorite BOA poetry books. She is a big BOA fan!

So, yes, I’m very excited about Flare, Corona coming out with BOA Editions in the fall of 2023, by which time I hope we will have better solutions for this covid thing and life will have somewhat returned to normal. Maybe I can even have a book party at a winery or something fun like that!

This book manuscript is very personal to me – it contains poems about getting diagnosed with what they said was terminal cancer back five years ago, and then six months later, getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and as I gradually recovered from the shock of those two things, the pandemic crept into our lives.

But I swear it’s not a depressing book – there are supervillains and fairy tales in the poems, as you might expect in my books – and there’s lots of humor. And I cannot imagine a better press to bring out this book.

And I’m also thankful to Alternating Current Press for bringing out Fireproof in May 2022, so I have something to focus on for the next six months. Fireproof is about witches, Joan of Arc, genetics, fairy tales – it’s a little edgy, a little feminist, and little political. A very different book than Flare, Corona. I’m about to be at the stage where I’m asking for blurbs (eek!) and deciding on cover art. The web site will probably get a little makeover based on the next two books as well.

It’s been five years since Field Guide to the End of the World came out, so to suddenly have two books on the horizon is a little bit of a shock – but a good shock. While you wait for the new books, remember books make wonderful holiday gifts! I’m happy to send a signed copy of any of my five poetry books or my PR for Poets book and you still have time for shipping priority before Christmas. 😊

Carillon Christmas tree, topiary deer, and sleigh

Wishing You a Safe, Healthy, and Happy Holiday!

Seriously now, take good care of yourselves, be careful, get tested, and take it easy on yourselves and your loved ones this holiday, We have never lived through years like the last two before, and hopefully, with gains in our scientist’s attacks on covid – I’m betting antivirals will make a huge difference once we have them in pill form – we won’t have to again. If you, like me, are having a little bit of a quieter year than usual, just remember this is only temporary, and try to be extra kind to yourself.

New Poem “Enchantment” Up on Rogue Agent, Winter Scenes and Surviving the Holiday During the 2nd Plague Year, and Big News Tomorrow!

Apple trees in winter, Woodinville

New Poem Up at Rogue Agent, and Big News Tomorrow

Well, I can’t tell you my big poetry news yet…but I will post it here (and on social media) tomorrow!

But in the meantime, thank you to Rogue Agent for publishing my poem “Enchantment” in their latest issue, which also has poems by friends Ronda Broatch and Jen Karetnick. It’s a very spooky fairy tale poem, which I thought worked well with this photo of winter apples – which always look so bleak and beautiful to me – and it’s also going to be in my upcoming book from Alternating Current Press, Fireproof.

A sneak peek at the poem:

Bald eagle swooping past my yard today

Winter Scenes and Surviving the Holidays During the Second Year of the Plague

This bald eagle swooped by my window while I was writing this, so I’m lucky I got a snap before it swooped away! That’s the nice thing about winter here – you might see an odd bald eagle, or black bear, or coyote or bobcat. Some real mega-fauna!

I was a little sick this week (a stomach bug and a migraine? strange combo for me – and I had to cancel a class, which I hated doing, but stomach bugs are one thing you don’t really have any control of) but before I feel too sorry for myself I now have three friends and one family member, all vaccinated, who have covid right now. I wish I could do more to protect or help them, or even had useful advice. It’s hard feeling helpless in the face of this thing. I wish now I had gone into a career in virology!

This Omicron thing is worrying because it seems to evade our vaccines, and it’s very contagious, and pretty much everywhere. What is the holiday going to bring, especially in states and countries that aren’t doing much with masks? I’m not going to try to travel or do much in indoor spaces, because I’m still “in a vulnerable population,” but I’m hoping this version of coronavirus will not be quite as dangerous or deadly, even if we know it’s more contagious.

Hummingbird on Christmas lights

We won’t really know just how dangerous for a few weeks yet, so we just have to wait and see, which is frustrating, not just for me, but for so many. I just want to send virtual hugs to everyone who has to wait a little longer when we thought we were finally at an end.

I’m still hoping it won’t last much longer, or at least recede into a less dangerous version of itself. I’m also hoping we’ll have more effective antivirals that work across a broader range of coronaviruses. Come on, science! Come on, genetic drift to a less scary version of itself! I really do have hope that this will not last forever. There will be a time when we won’t feel scared of “covid 19” anymore.

And we will be able to celebrate the holidays like we used to! Someday…

Christmas scene inside Willows Lodge

Glenn snapped this picture inside our local hotel, Willows Lodge, which, in normal times, we’d be going to every week to enjoy a cocktail and some live music, or maybe a nice dinner.

They do a beautiful job with holiday decorations – this tree always makes me feel small, because I think it’s two stories tall!  I miss doing these kinds of regular holiday things – going down the street to enjoy the holiday glow at wineries and restaurants, going to the zoo to see the lights, going to art galleries, or having holiday dinners – but I know I can make it just a little longer if I need to, and I guess I need to for now. I’m going to have to do more reading and more writing and spend less time pining for things I can’t do just yet. And I do have this mysterious good news to celebrate…stay tuned!