Summertime Blues, Poems for Replicants, Game of Thrones Poetry and Other Mysteries in the new Pine Hill Review, and Poets Cheering for Other Poets

Mt Rainier over wildflowers

Summertime Blues?

Is this a thing for you? The heat wave that slammed most of America finally hit us here in Seattle. We’ve had days in the high eighties and even low nineties in the last week, which means I’ve wilted and napped and generally felt out of it. I’ve been the opposite of productive. Even my sunflowers were wilting! I snapped this on a day Mt. Rainier was out (some days it was too hazy to appear) and the wildflowers looked so bright and beautiful. In Seattle, we don’t have that many sunny days, so you do feel guilty for “missing out” or cancelling plans (I had to cancel almost everything this week, but most of my things were medical tests, so really, I’m not really missing it!) You feel guilty for not windsurfing or paddleboarding or hiking a mountain. I didn’t take on any editing gigs and couldn’t do even menial mental tasks. I think summertime for some people comes with an opposite sort of seasonal effective disorder. You may not know this about me unless you see the secret codes in my poetry, but I am truly allergic to the sun – hives, fever, the whole bit. (Hence my extraordinary amount of pallor! I call my foundation shade “Corpsey.”) And MS symptoms are worsened by heat. I have to make peace with some amount of down time in the summer as a type A person with these problems. What about you? Do you embrace the summer heat or does it slow you down? Personally, I am counting down the days til September!

Daenerys with dragons

Game of Thrones Poetry and More Mysteries in the New Issue of Pine Hills Review

I am very happy to have three poems in the new issue of Pine Hills Review, which the editors included some cool associated art work. I have written a series of poems about Daenerys (often associated with Joan of Arc mythology) and this includes one of them, as well as a poem tribute to a SyFy original murder comedy movie. So, see? Aren’t you curious? The whole issue is really fun to read, and a little offbeat, which I have to say is welcome in the poetry world Here’s a sneak peek at my Daenerys/Joan of Arc/with a little bit of me poem:

From Pine Hills Review

Origami Unicorn, Blade Runner

Poems for Replicants

This week saw the death of another icon of my childhood, Rutger Hauer, who played the main villain (a sympathetic replicant/robot) in Blade Runner, the villain in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, the love interest in Ladyhawke, among other roles. The SFPA had put out a call for haiku on replicants in June, and I happened to find out I received the SFPA President’s Pick Award for my little scifiku. I have a little origami unicorn pin to remind me of the genius of the original Blade Runner and its source material, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? So I thought it would be a good time to post my little piece:

Replicant Haiku

Poetry reading with friends

Poets Cheering for Other Poets

I was talking to a couple of poet friends lately about women poets, in particular, supporting other poets. I think I have a bunch of very supportive poet friends. I was talking to a friend about reading the complete letters and journals of Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf this year. (Um, one of my friends suggesting my reading material and the blues might possibly be related? Could be!) But I did learn something from both women – both truly talented and accomplished writers who did take their own lives – about some secrets of success. Virginia Woolf – who struggled with both physical and mental health issues her whole life – was most productive around my age – her late forties. That’s encouraging in a society that often focuses on “thirty under thirty.” I mean, she was struggling, but she wrote like a fiend, some of her best work.

Part of Virginia Woolf’s success certainly came from a strong circle of artistic friends – she was famous for it – and I was talking to a poet friend today about the importance of having other writers to bounce our good news, bad news, new writing, or just general life things off of. We need someone who understands the particular despair of a bad review or a long cycle of rejection, or the elation of a good review or a particularly exciting acceptance. I was also buoyed by her marriage, strangely enough – though she was famous for writing her husband a rejection letter so cold – admitting her lack of physical attraction to him – but it seems that the marriage was one that worked, despite affairs (mostly on her part) – that she and her husband absolutely loved each other throughout thick and thin, sort of an antidote for the more bleak tale of Sylvia and Ted Hughes’ terrible marriage. And by the way, if Virginia Woolf left you cold in college, I suggest re-reading as an older reader, particularly in tandem with her journals and letters. I found them so much more enriching this time around, and think I understood not only her methods of writing but why she chose to write about the characters she did.

Poetry reading at Open Books, 2011

Anyway, I think that the old “writer is an island” myth is just that – a myth. Writers thrive with the support and help of other writers, and the support and help of spouses and family members and friends. I hope I help other writers and support their work with friendship, or reviews, or maybe even just liking an Instagram post. All of us – every one of us – will need encouragement and support at some point in their life. So if we can build a circle of artists, and musicians, and yes, other writers that we trust and that we support, it might not only enrich your life but your art.  No matter how famous (or not) a writer gets, they could all use one more positive word, slap on the back, a little support. Let’s build a kinder artistic world when we can.