A Stormy Week, Both Weather and Health-Wise; a Few Literary Things to Look Forward To

Black-Headed Grosbeak

A Stormy Week, Weather and Health-Wise

It’s June, or as some on the West Coast say, June-uary, and we’ve had a bizarre week of low and high pressure systems, storms, sideways rain, hail, cold, and wind. On top of this, I had one of my rare migraines with aura that took me out for an entire “day in bed in darkness” followed by a few days of a stomach bug. Fun, right? So, the weather and my health have been equally gloom-inducing. But strangely I have not been feeling as down about my writing life…see below for a few reasons I have some cheer in that department.

Female black-headed grosbeak

So I have not gotten as much done as I was hoping, besides which, it’s not feeling very summery. On the other hand, lots of opportunity to photograph by birds when my headache wasn’t too bad, so I have pictures of Hairy Woodpecker mothers feeding their babies, all kinds of hummingbirds, and black-headed grosbeaks.

Me with sequins and typewriter. This is how I always dress to write!

A Few Literary Things to Look Forward To

But I do have a few literary things to look forward to. I’m working on a speculative poetry class I’ll be teaching online in July. I applied to Breadloaf for the first time since I was a young writer and I had just quit my job to try and be a real writer (but was too poor to afford to go), so I’m going to the all-virtual Breadloaf in August, which I’m pretty excited about – because having this event virtually allows someone like me, with disabilities and chronic illness, to attend. I’m an extrovert who can’t travel and go to as many literary things as she would like, so this is something exciting for me. Maybe conferences will start having a virtual component so those of us who can’t travel easily can still enjoy the cool opportunities, readings and classes – I mean, this year proved we could do it, right?

Then, I’m going to my first residency in a very long time on San Juan Island, one of my favorite places, in September for ten days, where I’m hoping to get to serious work on a new poetry manuscript. There will be foxes and otters and deer and seals and bioluminescent life forms right on the water to help me write, and maybe, if we’re lucky, dolphins and whales. I haven’t been to the San Juan islands in six years, even though it’s one of my favorite places to visit in the state, so I’m really looking forward to this (and crossing my fingers that my body is cooperating with me health-wise that week, and no wildfires.) I’m also feeling a bit more positive about finding a publisher for my book manuscripts. I’m thinking of starting a newsletter, too, pre-book, just to start up another way to outreach. Anyway, hope your June-uary is going as well as possible!

First Butterflies, Sunny Days and Speculative Poetry Picks, Broken Teeth and Meditations on Melancholy

First Swallowtail butterfly of the season, on lilacs

First Butterflies and Sunny Days

I saw my first Swallowtail butterfly this week, and that is a sure sign summer in near. Although I mistrust a string of sunny says, we’ve been trying to make the most of them, getting out to see the early summer flowers and enjoying gardening late with the longer light (til 8 PM now!) Sun can slow me down, as heat makes my MS symptoms act up, and I broke a tooth again this week requiring an emergency dentist trip. So that’s the downside of this week for me.

As people get more and more vaccinated in my area, you see happier people, friendlier faces. I stepped into an indoor farm stand (with a mask) for the first time since the pandemic – so much fun to see the produce in person.

I also am so proud of my planter-based culinary herb garden I started last year – with parsley, chives, pineapple sage, chocolate mint, mojito mint, tarragon, and a mini-rose for no reason. The hummingbirds and bumblebees love sage and chive flowers. If you need to garden but have accessibility problems with diggings, bending, and weeding, it’s a perfect container project. Highly recommend! This planter is sectioned so the herbs don’t take each other over, and there are planters (more expensive) that are even self-watering. But I like watering, pinching things back and smelling each herb close up. In my real-life-sized larger garden, roses and peonies are blooming, sugar snap peas are ready for harvest, and strawberries have baby strawberries on them now.

Me with newly extra-pink hair in Kirkland

Speculative Poetry Picks

I also had the honor of helping curate a Speculative Poetry page for our Seattle poetry-only bookstore, Open Books.

Here’s a link if you want some of my favorite books of speculative verse! 

It includes everyone from stellar popular prize-winners like Tracy K. Smith to robot-loving poet/scholars like Margaret Rhee, and I tried to find all kinds of speculative poetry – sci fi, scientific poetry, futurism, pop culture.

Besides the books listed at that link, I highly recommend Sally Rosen Kindred’s upcoming Where the Wolf, from Diode Editions, Celia Lisset Alvarez’s Multiverses, Jason Mott’s Hide Behind Me (hard to find now – he’s just putting out a tremendous new book taking on race, celebrity, and a book tour haunted by ghosts called “A Hell of a Book”) and Jason McCall’s Dear Hero (also out of print, but worth tracking down.)

Glenn and I with Lake Washington and roses

Meditations on Melancholy

So, despite these smiling pictures, I’ve been struggling with melancholy lately. Something like breaking a tooth (the fifth one since the pandemic started) or waking up with MS-related joint pain and fatigue, or another rejection of my manuscript-in-progress, can kick off a cascade of catastrophic thinking. Why do I send out my poetry at all? Why do I work so hard on my health (eating carefully, meditating, physical therapy, etc) only to face setbacks I can’t do anything about fixing? Is aging just one health disaster after another? (The answer, children, is yes! No, no, I’m sorry. I’m sure that’s not true. For some lucky people.)

One way I comforted myself about my broken tooth was to think about Emily Dickinson, who probably had very little help from dental technology when she inevitable broke her teeth, or the way her vision problems caused her headaches (and she had to write longhand via candlelight.) My paternal grandmother had to have all her teeth pulled by the time she was 40. Another friend my age told me she’d had ten – ten, not two – root canals. I may be more unique in that I have autoimmune problems that make dental work complicated, as well as allergies to pretty much all painkillers and Novocain, but lots of people have battles with their teeth, which is somewhat comforting.

As far as my Multiple Sclerosis, I’m lucky it doesn’t give me more trouble than it does, so when I wake up with nausea and vertigo (telltale signs I need to slow down and take care of myself) or I’m so fatigued I can barely walk across the room, I try not to panic, and to be extra careful to stay out of the hottest part of the day and take my vitamins and just generally pay attention to my body’s signals. I’m due for another brain MRI soon. Do I want to do this? It makes me really anxious because I’m claustrophobic, and of course the possibility of the bad news of progression of damage to my brain and spine. I’m also facing the question – now that I’m vaccinated – of starting a new disease-modifying medication. Sigh.

And in my writing life, it’s been a season of rejection, rejection, rejection. Yes, I try to comfort myself that I’ve been lucky enough to have five poetry books published, or that I’ve gotten into some of my dream journals, or that I have wonderful supportive poet friends to help celebrate the wins and mourn the losses. But sometimes I wonder if the rewards are worth the effort. So, if one day I just stopped writing or sending out poetry, it’s not like anyone would demand it or clamor for my next book. To be honest, I also wonder about the effort of keeping this blog up as well – it does take time and energy, and I’m not sure that many people even read it (thanks, those that read and comment though, of course!)

I don’t want you to think it’s all gloom and doom in my head; it’s not. And I certainly recognize that many people, including some of my friends and family, have had it much worse than me lately. Every poet probably struggles with rejection, and we do tend to be prone to melancholy; it’s been a hard year for everyone; I recognize that catastrophic feelings don’t help anything. I think it would be nice if I could feel like I was able to do something useful again in the world, get paid for my work, or at least feel like I was helping others. I’m writing an essay for an anthology on speculative work and I’ll be offering an online class on speculative poetry soon (of course I’ll post details when it’s closer.) So those projects are good. And I really am thinking about moving forward on acquiring a place to use as a writer’s retreat – La Conner, WA or Port Townsend, WA maybe? So I’m trying to see the good things coming. I promise.

Almost Summer – Memorial Day Weekend, Supermoons, and Dreaming Some Poetry Dreams

Pink Peony – Signs of Summer

Signs of Summer – Memorial Day Weekend

Happy Sunday, readers. Are you seeing signs of summer yet? Here, after a fairly rainy and cold May, we are finally seeing and feeling a little summertime vibe. Like the blooming – peonies, roses, and lavender – all definitely summertime flowers here – and the baby birds of all sorts. It was a lovely 72 degree sunny day yesterday, one of those impossibly blue-sky, happy almost-summer days we get here, and I took a walk on the Sammamish trail, observed tons of baby things, listened to the wind in the trees, and the air smelled sweet – not yet full of wildfire smoke (hopefully we’ll have less this year) and there’s a sense of happiness and buoyancy all around.

The end of the pandemic is not here yet, but it feels close. I can tell you I feel more optimistic this May than I did last May – with more knowledge, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and hopefully some good antiviral meds on the way. Now they’re saying immunity after being ill with covid-19 lasts at least a year.  Anyway, we have a reason to be optimistic again. Not that I’m off to ride a crowded subway or sit in a movie theater yet, but a trip to the bookstore again (even a poetry reading?) seems within the realm of the possible.

Flower Supermoons, Eclipses, and Feeling Restless

This week we also had a lunar eclipse of the Flower Supermoon. I also get weird around Supermoons – I sleep poorly, I’m moody and restless. Am I the only one this happens to? It’s also this time of year – the changing weather (fifty and rain one day, eighty and sunny the next) that throws me off.

Flower Supermoon, pre-eclipse

Supermoons also make me think about the future, for some reason. I always have weird vivid dreams – this week, among others, I had a poetry dream where a person was helping me sort one of my poetry manuscripts with blue drawers along a wall, and another where a man told me “No one wants to hear from a woman over 35.” (I mean, that seems like it is true in the poetry world, sometimes, doesn’t it? Or in the whole world? Women in my age group (late forties) seem to be mostly ignored, when we are in major energy mode in terms of knowing who we are, what we want, when we are gaining in inner powers.) Anyway, I have been feeling like I’ve been hearing an awful lot of “no” from the literary world and started thinking about what I might be able to do about that. I know I can’t just “will” good things to happen, but sometimes it seems like forward motion comes from a kind of crisis.

Which leads me to…

Towhee with pink flower

Poetry Dreaming

So, last week I talked about discouragement from the whole rejection-cycle of being a poet. This week I’m going to talk about poetry dreams. The sort you’ve thought about for a while and think – now may be the time to take steps towards making them a reality. You know, I’ve been sending out resumes for jobs in the literary world (this is a big secret) but it got me thinking about what kind of work I could start on my own. I’ve thought a long time about opening up my own press, and lately I’ve gotten to start thinking about Virginia Woolf – the way she cultivated her own circle of talented artists, writers, and critics, and invited them to her home because her health didn’t do well when she was away. I thought about maybe investing in a little writer’s retreat cabin in a resort area that I could use, but could also rent out to friends (writers and artists), and maybe even running a little writer’s retreat of my own. I think that would be within the range of things I could do without endangering my health, especially if I had an accessible place to host from. What do you guys think?

The main thing keeping me from starting a press in the knowledge that while I have some gifts that are good for running a press – enthusiasm for getting underrepresented voices out into the world, a great reader (and pretty good editor, if I do say so myself), PR and marketing know-how, a pretty good idea of how to run a business – my worry is that I recognize I don’t really have a great mind for detail (even worse since the MS). I wonder if I could get a partner in the press who was great at detail-work. I know that the caveat of a one-or-two person press is that if, for instance, one person’s health fails (which has happened at two of my own publishers) then the press is gone. Thus my hesitance to “go for it.” (Well, that and paperwork – one of my least favorite things in life.)

Goldfinch with rose bush

So the kinds of jobs I’ve been applying for would be doing marketing and PR for presses – or even acquisition editor, a job I’ve had before in my previous life at Microsoft. While it would be fun to be part of a team in that case, would it be more fun if I had more ownership?

So, even if I don’t have the money, partners, or plans completely available right now, there’s no harm in putting these things out into the universe, is there? Please chime in in the comments if you have any thoughts, encouragements, or ideas about what I’ve posted here….

A Week of Reintegration – Family Visits, Haircuts, and Roses – and Rejections

Goldfinch in Flight

A Week of Reintegration – Diving In

This goldfinch in flight represents my own approach to this week – diving back into reintegration this week. Our state, like many, dropped the requirement for vaccinated people to wear masks outside and even many situations indoors. I am cautiously embracing not wearing masks outdoors (yay!) but indoors I’m still wearing masks in public just to protect myself and to make other people feel comfortable, but I am having visits with friends and family who are vaccinated indoors without masks. Whew! That’s a lot of mask talk.

I got a haircut (wearing masks, but still), strolled around the waterfront at Kirkland looking at roses (with my mask off, so I could literally stop and smell the roses – such a pleasure I had forgotten), and a mini-family-reunion/late birthday celebration with my little brother and his wife. Getting a haircut seemed like such a luxury after the last year and a half – and I felt so much better (more myself?) with shorter, sassier hair. Seeing my little brother after such a stressful six months meant I felt similarly thankful. Walking around the Kirkland waterfront and being able to smell the air and the flowers – something I took for granted before last February – felt like a small step towards normalcy.

Pink clematis from my garden

Birds and Blooms This Week

It’s late May, which means the garden is changing. My own roses aren’t blooming (dang deer ate the tops of every rose, eve the ones in “deer proof” cages) but the peonies are about to go, the pink clematis, rhododendrons, and azaleas are blooming, and the birds are singing loudly every morning. I find myself sitting outside on the deck more and more each day, especially the cloudy days, and the birds are getting more comfortable with me.

Peekaboo woodpecker

And a Week of Rejections

Unlike this woodpecker, I was not able to hide from being hammered by rejections this week. Despite all the joyful things, I did feel a little discouraged be the sheer number (I think it was seven) of them. I know that rejection is part of the writer’s life, but it can feel like “Why do I even bother?” and also “This is an expensive form of gambling (since submissions cost from $3 for most lit mags, to $25 for most book contests).”

Sylvia Plath said: “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”

I wish I had that good an attitude towards them. I often feel like they are a sign I should quit writing or that I should just to stop sending out. I have a few friends who get together a couple of times a year to do a submissions thing together. If it were not for them, I probably would not have sent anything out this week. The other thing is that on social media, it always seems like people are always celebrating new book contracts with great publishers or winning contracts or grants and it’s hard not to compare yourself and feel like a failure.

This is part of why I’ve been looking for a part-time work-from-home job – so I had something that was steady that might distract me from the merry-go-round of “yay, acceptance” and “boo, rejections” (and gave me a steady source of income.) Also talking to other writers going through the same thing helps. Part of why I’m writing this part of the blog post is to share that yes, this part of the writing life is hard, expensive, and sometimes feels like it’s not worth the effort. If you feel that way, I understand. The old lottery adage, “You can’t win if you don’t play” comes to mind.

Striped pink rose

I know that it seems so easy for some people – they get solicited by top-tier journals and publishers, they win a book contest on their first try or they have a drink at a bar with an editor who then publishes their book. But for most writers, rejection was a big part of their journey. I feel like this is still more true for women writers than men writers. I literally had a dream where someone told me “No one wants to hear from a woman over 38.” I hope that is not true.

It’s cloudy today, and I will try to get some writing done (much more fun and life-affirming for me than submitting.) I will notice the birds and flowers of May even through the gloom. And I am trying to see the world more optimistically, that we are almost (hopefully) at the end of the time of pandemic. I am feeling more and more ready every day to reintegrate into the world. I’ve been taking it slow, but taking little steps is key.

A Poem on Verse Daily – I Can’t Stop, Birds and Blooms, and Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion

A Poem Featured on Verse Daily Today

Thanks to Verse Daily for featuring my poem today, “I Can’t Stop,” from the latest issue of Sugar House Review. Check it out! A great post-birthday birthday present!

A sneak peek below. It seems to fit the anxious mood right now…

Bi-color lilacs

Birds and Blooms

We had mostly beautiful weather this week, and everything has started blooming, but I was down with a cold so I didn’t get out as much as I wanted to. However, I did manage to snap some pics of birds and blooms around my neighborhood. If you are feeling too closed-in, I recommend taking a stroll around some Woodinville wineries – even the small ones – some of them have surprisingly great landscaping and birdwatching. I mean, come for the wine, stay for the flowers!

Purple Iris

Reading Joan Didion, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath

So I spent some time this week reading Joan Didion’s new collection of as-yet uncollected essays from the 1960’s – 2000s, What I Mean – a great book to dip in and out of on the weekends. Standout essays include “Why I Write” and “On Being Unchosen by the College of One’s Choice,” as well as some of her asides about her early days working as a copywriter at Vogue.

Here is a picture of my kitten Sylvia cuddling Joan Didion.

I also finished Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz, about the friendship and relationships between Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. There were two fun chapters – on how they met in a workshop with Robert Lowell, their meetups, and on their writing habits – and about four excruciating chapters on how both women suffered in their marriages, their poor treatment at the hands of psychiatrists, Anne’s abuse of her daughter, and their eventual suicides. I know it’s hard to get around those subjects in any kind of biography about either poet but it just – oof – made for tough going. It’s well-researched and the author makes useful notes and asides for context, but I was glad to have Joan Didion to go back to – she seemed so solidly upbeat in comparison!

I was also interested to find out for which book and when Anne Sexton won the Pulitzer Prize – click the link for more detailed info from a Poetry Foundation blog post – and how she negotiated for equal pay for readings, appearances, and publications. When reading about successful female authors of the past for inspiration, I often wonder how they would fare now. How much more equitable is our current system – health system, and the poetry system? How can we make it even better? How can we find successful women writers who had more stable, less abusive relationships, better help and more success in life who can be role models? There’s always Margaret Atwood, who remains bracingly cheerful in the face of a long, happy marriage and a lot of late-in-life success, I guess…Suggestions welcome in the comments!