Jeannine Hall Gailey's Blog, page 101

Spoooooky Halloween Poems...Zombie Girls, Monsters, Witches...Oh My!

Yes, it's almost Halloween again, and though the East Coast got blasted with ice and snow, the weather in Seattle is predictably cold and grey. We are carving pumpkins and putting together our Snow White/Woodsman costumes for tomorrow. (With all the fairy tale television on lately...I couldn't resist!)

And I'm posting a few poems to get you in the spooky spirit! Zombies, Monsters, Witches...And be sure to watch the Escape into Life blog for a Halloween feature tomorrow...

They Are Not Regenerating
by Jeannine Hall Gailey

We are not zombies, thrown into a pool
of dubious origin and coming back beautiful
but decaying
unsure of how to live – pretending to swim,
eat yogurt like regular girls.

We are not clones, despite being drawn to specifications
(36-26-36) and bearing bouffants and bikinis
we might hack each other to pieces
but we are not confused about our identities

(living or not living) we continue
in this shape we were given
our cells cannot regenerate and the scientist
names us "Dead"
we are not regenerating we cannot reproduce ourselves we cannot be anything
but the fulfillment of your fantasy, flesh-eating or not.

The Monster Speaks: It's Not So Bad

By Jeannine Hall Gailey (from Becoming the Villainess and based on the legend of Melusine, a French queen who, they say, turned into a dragon...)

Being a monster, really. It slows down traffic
from neighbors and I'm finally getting the respect
I deserve. For years they snickered behind curtains
when I passed by, but now they cross themselves

(I think in reverence.) They clutch babies
to their chests and wail. They lay their hands
over the eyes of the dead. I can peek
in their windows, raid the pantries, curl

up in their attics for a night. I found a picture
they carved of me in black slate.
It wasn't a very good likeness, but they meant
well. Children dream of me.

I am no longer lonely, I enjoy the dark,
the click-click of my claws against glass,
the way my tail sparkles in moonlight. Even
this new voice bewitches me. If you put

your ear on my chest, you can hear
the new, unfamiliar thumps of four hearts,
each stronger than the last. Touch the skin
between wing-bones, the delicate eyelids.

In this body I've become myself again.
As I circle the castle, the song that scrapes
my throat agitates the stars themselves.
The flames of my voice burn the acrid air of night.

Introduction to Witchcraft

by Jeannine Hall Gailey (This poem is new and unpublished, so it may go *poof* after All Hallow's Eve...)

Always these young women in search of power,
their eyes rolled back in their heads, midriffs exposed.
Always some girl with a candle in a dark room –
and poof, her face brightens as she achieves
some moment of bliss. The raindrops around her freeze

in midair, the wolves stop baring their fangs, and for a moment
the young girl marvels at her own invincibility.
But then it's fire, fire, always someone with a stake or a knife
ready to do her in. She is a spark about to go out.

Strange Horizons, Surviving Poetry, Whiting Awards...

So, I escaped from the teen workshop without any major injuries, though I woke up this morning feeling flu-y again. Guess the cure is just...rest!

If you're in the mood for science-based poetry, my poem "Tickling the Dragon" about the death of Louis Slotin - who inspired the creation of "Dr. Manhattan" of "The Watchmen" fame - was featured a day or so ago at Strange Horizons:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/20111024/gailey-p.shtml

I think I have a psychic link of some sort with the mysterious group that hands the Whiting Awards, because all the writers I thought I'd discovered were then given the award - Ilya Kaminsky, Jericho Brown, Dana Levin, and now...Eduardo Corral. I liked them all before they were famous, as we protest about our favorite indy bands...

Redmond Teen Poetry Workshop on Mythology and Superheroes

Here's what I'll be doing tomorrow:
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/red/community/132343343.html
So if you are - or have - a high school kid who loves comic books or mythology and might be interested in writing a poem or two, bring them out! 6-8 PM.

Watched the new fairy-tale series, "Once Upon a Time," last night - it wasn't bad at all! I loved the creepy actor playing Rumplestiltskin, and I thought the lighting and colors and imagery of the show were all really beautiful. Too bad I'm not writing for it! PS Hollywood makers of fairy-tale shows - I am available for work!

Reading Report from an Artist's Reception and a Wonderful New Review

Thanks very much to The Pedestal Magazine and critic Michael Adams for a wonderful new review of She Returns to the Floating World
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=20261

You want a copy? Get one here or here or order a signed copy from me here!

So, I want to come out and say it: artists and art-lovers make for great poetry audiences! Deborah Scott's wonderful paintings from her show "Waiting for Prince Charming" were in a lovely setting at Georgetown's All City Coffee (I had seen them in a studio setting, but they were all the more impressive hung together thematically and with good lighting.) I read poems inspired by similar fairy tales – Snow White, Princess and the Pea, Alice in Wonderland – and the crowd, most of whom had never been to a poetry reading before, were kind and attentive (and bought books!) It was probably the most fun I'd had at a poetry reading in a while. Here is a picture of the curator, artist Deborah Scott (with the tiara, appropriately) and me, and other photo of one of the paintings from her Snow White series...

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Waiting for Prince Charming - Artist Reception and Poetry Reading

You know how I'm always talking about how artists and poets should work together? Well, here is an awesome chance to check out art work and poetry at the same time!

Artist Reception for Deborah Scott's show, "Waiting for Prince Charming," with Poetry Reading by Jeannine Hall Gailey

Waiting for Prince Charming
Friday Oct 21st
7pm - 9pm
All City Coffee - Georgetown
1205 South Vale St
Seattle, WA 98108

You can read more about Deborah's show here:
http://www.seattleartblog.com/?p=2459
Artsy Forager

Her work is amazing and my reading will be in keeping with her show's theme: Waiting for Prince Charming!

Sex, Lies and Mentoring: What's a Woman to Do?

Writer Paisley Rekdal has a post on her blog about the problematic nature of finding mentors for young women here: http://paisleyrekdal.blogspot.com/2011/10/on-writing-mentors.html?spref=fb

I read it with interest, because I, too, as a young female, have been fairly cautious – maybe overly so – when talking with older male writers – always a bit suspicious, I'm afraid, of ulterior motives…but something about getting a little older, a little closer to forty, makes this all less of an issue, and of course being married to a big, scary-looking guy who's pretty much around all the time helps, too. So I'm not quite as reflexively self-protective as I used to be.

And I have had good experiences with female professors, reaching to help out when and how they can, even if their time and resources tend to be more limited (as Paisley points out.)

But, how common is this female inability to accept mentoring? How many women writers has it hurt? Has it hurt me? What about you?

To make matters more complicated, when I read this post, I was watching the British movie "Tamara Drewe," basic on the graphic-novel-based-on-the-Thomas-Hardy-Novel Far From The Madding Crowd. In it, the young female protagonist, in a pique because the guy she likes is with someone else when she happens to be free, beds the oozingly-creepy-older-male-writer – even though he's married – and gratefully accepts his older-male-writer writing advice. Ick. I can't help but have a visceral reaction, maybe because I've seen it too many times in real life. I mean, we ladies can get writing advice without doling out sex, right? Right? I was disappointed to see it in a (rare) movie about a female writer. (The philandering older male writer character, spoiler alert, bites it. Hardy was awfully hard on his philanderers, though he was famous for that activity himself.)

So what has your experience been with mentorship? Have you been overly cautious, or have you found mentors at all? I was thinking that for me, perhaps friends have been more important than mentors, because friends are the ones that stick with you through the bad times, encourage you when you're down, help you write and send out in the day-to-day activity of being a writer. It also made me think about how I need to be willing to help others - I think of myself still as a struggling - what is that word..."emerging" writer...but I think I might be able to help more people if I made more of an effort. I'm happy to get a chance in the next week to lead a high school student workshop in Redmond (see more info here) but I would like to do even more of that kind of work.

What Poetry Can Learn From the Pops

Glenn and I went to the symphony yesterday for the first time since...well, I used to go all the time when I was in junior high and high school, because I was friends with the daughter of one of the conductors of the Cincinnati Symphony and therefore got to go for free, and really enjoyed especially the outdoor pops shows with all their fireworks and fanfare...and when I lived in Richmond, VA, I got to go to all kinds of cultural events, opera, ballet, symphony - for free because I was a reviewer for some digital media outlets. But, in Seattle, I've rarely had the time or money - or the combination of both - to take advantage of some of the local cultural wonders, so it had been a while. So finally, when the Seattle Symphony pops had an "Sci-Fi" event, we bought a couple of tickets and went. It was a little pricey for us, but we always talk about supporting the arts, so...

We had lovely seats down by the orchestra, and they played selections from John Williams (Star Wars) and the Planets, among other things (a Thriller arrangement with zombie-dressed amateur dancers?) The energetic conductor, Victor Vanacore, gamely sang the words to "Ghostbusters." Even better, if you are a Star Trek: Next Generation fan, Jonathon Frakes got up and introduced each piece. (I have never noticed this before, but sci-fi movie themes tend towards the bombastic and war-like - every piece sounded a bit like a march, a bit like the 1812 overture.)
I was thinking, as I looked around the hall crowded, yes, with the gray-haired, but also a surprising number of children and youngish types, that this was "symphony evangelism." Sure, it got children to listen to some of the classics, but each piece was short enough for a child's attention span (or the average techie's) and there were visual cues - a charming host, zombies, etc - to help keep the audience entertained.
I'm betting it was a lot more crowded than the average symphony show. And it got me thinking - if the symphony knows how to reach out to the crowds, why not poets? Keep things short, have some banter in between readings, and maybe invite some zombies...and hope they come back for the serious stuff, the Stravinsky or Bach.

Reunions, Poemeleon, and inspiring reading...

First, let me tell you to go read something from the new issue of one of my favorite online journals, Poemeleon: http://www.poemeleon.org/table-of-contents-6/
I may have a poem in there. It is secretly one of my favorite poems ever. It may also be one of my geekiest poems ever. Also, poems by Sherman Alexie, my friends Michelle Bitting and Ronda Broatch, and Ann Fisher-Wirth, among others.

Now that you're back, let me confess that this weekend I was supposed to be at my 20th (yes, 20th!) high school reunion. In celebration of this missed event, I watched one of the best ever episodes of 30 Rock, called "Reunion." In it, Liz Lemon discovers she was not the oppressed nerd she always thought she had been, but instead, a cruel bully that everyone feared and hated. Pretty hilarious reflection on how our memories - especially youthful memories - tend to be not only narcissistic but inaccurate. You may remember how much you hated so-and-so, the popular girl, but she will remember how she tried to be friends with you and you made a cutting remark about her mother's drug addiction. So, I am missing that treasured event this weekend. See the downsides of living thousands of miles from the land of your Midwestern middle-childhood?

Another guilty secret: I am one of those people that spends the extra $5 to buy the British versions of magazines like Vogue and Bazaar. And here is why: the fashion spreads occasionally are based on things like the plot of The Snow Queen or Victorian poets. Also, they contain interviews with writers, rundowns, with photos, of writer's conferences, and even, once in a while, really good little pieces of fiction. This October issue of British Harper's Bazaar has a genius little contemporary re-take on Wuthering Heights, called "The Heathcliff" by Jeanette Winterson. Go out and get it and read it. Love! The last lines are
"The waitress smiles at me and looks at my book. 'I love that song by Kate Bush.' I ask her if she has read the novel. 'No, but everybody knows it don't they? It's a love story.'
I am not sure that it is."
Among other secrets: I sometimes enjoy writer's books of essays on writing more than their actual fiction or poetry or whatever. This may be the case with Margaret Atwood, whose new set of essays on the sci-fi/speculative genre, In Other Worlds, made it to the top of my reading list. I love one essay where she talks about creating, yes, bunny superheroes. Her famous resistance to calling her own work "science fiction" is also discussed.

Guilty Secrets: The Introvert/Extrovert Writer's Dilemma

So, you may have noticed lately on my blog that I have been out and about a bit more than usual. Like, six thousand times more than usual. This last 30 days I have done more socializing than I probably did in my whole two years down in California. I like people, and I like going out, and I have a new book out that I am promoting, so, you know, part of the territory...You put on your sparkly clothes, and you put on your lipstick, and you go out and meet the world. But...the guilty secret is...when I take those personality tests, you know the ones, INTJ or ENFP, I come out 50 percent introverted and 50 percent extroverted. So while half of me really enjoys the socializing, half of me wants to be curled up in bed watching Boardwalk Empire with a copy of a bad novel in my lap and a plate of Glenn's newest gluten-free desserts (this month, blueberry-chocolate-chip vanilla muffins.) On the other hand, when I don't get out enough, I get a little scratchy and restless. Like a bad cat, I want out, then I want back in. Then I want out again.
I wonder, is this something every writer experiences? I only write during times when I spend a lot of time alone. But, if I go out every night, that is where all my energy goes - out the door. I want to start writing something new. I also like seeing my friends, I like seeing other writers read their work. I genuinely enjoy all these experiences. One of my favorite things to do in the whole world - more than movies or ice cream - is meet new people and talk about poetry.With a bit of spare time today, I applied for a job, I sent out some new work, I worked on a grant application and a friend's poems. But tonight, I'm happy to have nothing more pressing to do than figure out dinner, maybe catch up with my stack of unread library books, and maybe even, you know...write?

Geek Girl Con - When Poets and Geeks Collide

We had unexpectedly beautiful weather for today's appearances at Geek Girl Con. The sun shone, the temperature went all the way up to 64 degrees (it's been in the fifties and rainy) and Mt Rainier came out and greeted us as we drove into the city.
Geek Girl Con was a lot of fun. I did a signing, sold a couple of books, the presentation went well, and I found a couple of really cool things - like Ada's Bookstore and Tracy who runs the charmingly named Geektastic Pentameter. I also got to meet Wonder Woman comic writer Gail Simone, who was quoted in my first book's poem "Women in Refrigerators." The crowd was friendly, the conference was sold out and they were turning people away by noon, and in general people seemed to have a really good time. And now the University Bookstore carries both my books (in case you're in Seattle looking for them..)
My real purpose in going to cons (this is my fourth) is to help bring poetry to audiences that might not know that there is poetry out there that might appeal to them. Call it "poetry evangelism." And I like it! The intersection where poet meets geek!
Here are my funny stories - one person told me they really liked my costume (a black jacket, a pink sequin shirt, jeans, and pink Uggs.) Now, a lot of people dressed up as Leia, anime characters, etc...but I was only dressed as a poet!
The other funny story is when a gentleman taking video of the conference came up to me as I was doing my signing and asked if I was comic book and television writer (from such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly) Jane Espenson. This led me to realize 1. no one ever knows what writers look like and 2. I could claim to be a famous other writer person and no one would know! But when I admitted I was "just a poet" and told the videographer who I was, he decided to go ahead and film something from me about the conference anyway, which I did a hilariously bad job with. Glenn got a shot of this and you can see the camera in the picture above.
Then we snuck out to enjoy some of the sights of downtown Seattle in the sun. This is me at the famous "Black Hole Sun" and Glenn across the street at the Asian Art Museum: