Jeannine Hall Gailey's Blog, page 110

Girls in a Boy's Club: Tips for Poets

Elisa had a post about the excellent manifesto, How to Be a Woman in Any Boy's Club. As someone who has worked in a few boy's clubs (working as a tech manager for a decade before my foray into writing) I will say that I think poetry has some of the subtlest but also most difficult sexism I have ever run into, which makes it more frustrating. Sure, you're welcome to the party, but only if you're this kind of girl - and even then you're almost statistically guaranteed less in terms of awards, grants, publication, and reviews. As I commented on Elisa's blog, a lot of the problem is summed up in the headline I saw recently: "Women more educated, still making less than men." In the end, we can work harder, but we still get...less.

I identified with this essay quite a bit, as I grew up with three brothers and no sisters, and automatically gravitated towards hanging out with guys for most of my life, took up stereotypically "guyish" habits, etc. I'm not a tomboy by any stretch of the imagination, but as you can see with my poetic fascination with robots, comic books, anime, etc, I definitely felt (and feel) comfortable in the quintessential fortresses of male culture. Anyway, this made me think about what I was personally doing to help poetry become less of a boy's club.

So, since I'm a take-action kind of person, I thought I would post some tips, some action items, for poets to help make the poetry world a little bit less of a boy's club. (Hint: these tips work equally well for men and women.)
--When you buy a book of poetry, try one by a female! When you review a book of poetry, try a book of poetry by a female.
--When you review said book of poetry by a female, try to eliminate any references to Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, or Elizabeth Bishop. I'm so tired of reading comparisons to those three women poets, as if male reviewers haven't read any other female poets besides those two or three. It just looks lazy, fellas.
--When you have an opportunity to pay readers, have a woman out. Remember, we're making less money over our whole life span, so cut a sister some slack. Try to remember to invite a woman poet who is not already rolling in dough and awards - that would be extra nice.
--Female poets: start reviewing books. You have something to say about literature and your voice is just as valuable as a male reviewer's voice. Remember, if you're not part of the conversation, you're letting somebody else drive it. Write like your work is something important. Send out like you already know your work is great. Don't keep everything in an envelope in your desk hoping someone will Emily Dickinson you, because let's face it, it's probably not going to happen.
--Don't automatically laud men who write a lot of sexist poetry. If I have to read one more poem comparing a woman's body part to something edible...are we allowed to call male writers out when they compare women to animals, lessening women to the sum of their body parts, etc? I was just thinking about Tony Hoagland's poem "The Change" and how it started a discussion of race. What about a similar discussion of sexism in poetry?
--Volunteer for literary magazines or book publishers that promote work by women. I've volunteered for The Seattle Review, Silk Road, The Raven Chronicles, and Crab Creek Review, and was amazed at what I learned as a board member, editor, reviewer, etc.

In a totally non-related moment: Interested in gluten-free recipes for creme brulee? Interested in gluten-free Northwest restaurant info? See my newish blog! First post has a lactose-free, gluten-free creme brulee recipe. I plan to chronicle my experiments in gluten-free cooking and restaurant-visiting there.

New poems out and about in the world, stylish bloggers, and truth versus lies

A few new poems out there in the world, including a few from my newest in-process collection called "The Robot Scientist's Daughter:"
--Cerise Press's Spring issue features two new poems, "The Robot Scientist's Daughter [director or dictator]" and "Half-Life". The issue also features work by Ann Fisher-Wirth, G. C. Waldrep, and Susan Musgrave.
--The journal Eleven Eleven (a beautiful little creation from the California College of the Arts) Issue Ten features three new poems, "The Robot Scientist's Daughter, Before," "She Introduces Her Husband to Knoxville," and one of Kelli's favorite titles, "On the Night of a Lunar Eclipse, a Missile Shoots Down a Spy Satellite". This issue also features Megan Snyder-Camp, Hollie Hardy, and Mark Wallace.
--The new American Poetry Journal Number 10 is a hybrid creation, romanced by cover art of two intertwined peacocks, with National Poetry Review. My prose poem, "Seascape," is featured on the "American Poetry Journal" side, along with work by friend and blogger Keith Montesano, and many of my poet friends are featured on the flip side in National Poetry Review: Mary Biddinger, Tom C. Hunley, and Amanda Auchter. It's a two-for-one deal!
I feel like now we should have a party with all the poets in these three issues of journals, featuring a wide range of aesthetics and personalities. I think it would be a blast!

I was remiss is not thanking Kelli for nominating me for her Stylish Blogger award a week or so ago, and then I think I was supposed to reveal some truths and a lie. Seventeen truths and four hundred lies. So, I will also use the poems that came out this week as a jumping off point for some truths and lies. Can you guess which is which?
--My childhood home in Tennessee, a two-story brick house on eight acres of farm and woodland, was razed to build an insane asylum. Which then was never built.
---The poem "She Introduces Her Husband to Knoxville" is based on a lie, as my husband has never been to my childhood home in Knoxville.
--I have taken many job aptitude tests that told me I should be a dancer or a director.
--I have owned a Barbie "President" doll.
See if this week's poems hold any clues!

Radio Interviews, Covers, and other poetry news

Yesterday I got to talk with host Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo and fellow female comic book superhero enthusiast Ramona Pilar Gonzalez about Wonder Woman, Joss Whedon as high priest of the religion of television, feminism and comic books, the need for goddesses in pop culture, the VIDA count, the Geek Girl Con, and a lot more. You can listen to it here.

I promised you could see the cover of my upcoming book She Returns to the Floating World soon, and here you go. It's only the front cover so far, but the front's the exciting part, right? Let me know what you think. The art work is Rene Lynch, a piece called "The Secret Life of the Forest (A Different Sleep)" which works really well with the themes of the book, I think, all about dream worlds and transformations.

I got to see Martha Silano read from her new book, The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception. The last time I saw her read at Open Books, we were reading for our books Blue Positive and Becoming the Villainess, partners in crime with Steel Toe Books. Her children were babies then - now they're darling children, complete with giant stuffed ponies and mops of hair, nearly teenagers! Ah, nostalgia. We had a lot of fun and got to hang out with a lot of poets I love that I don't get to see very often. Of course, we were nearly done in by a surprise blizzard that shut down the road in and out of our apartment complex, but we managed to get in and out okay (when I got home and saw the news and all the wrecks on the road near our house, I felt like a big risk taker. Then I dreamed about being Buffy and getting electrocuted. So, all in all, a normal day.) This morning the world is frosted in snow, though this being late February, it's sort of odd for Seattle to be quite this snowy. I am very ready for spring.

Blurbs and Friends' Good News

Interested in reading the blurbs for the back of She Returns to the Floating World?

Well, just wait for a second. First of all, let me congratulate my good friend Felicity Shoulders about her Nebula Award nomination for her story in Asimov's, "Conditional Love." Pretty kick-ass for a girl who just celebrated her 30th birthday, right? You can listen to her story in podcast form here.

OK, now for the blurbs. I'm so excited, particularly because all these blurbers are personal heroes of mine (if you're a fan of studies of Japanese pop culture, check out Roland Kelts' book; if you're interested in some fantastic editing of fairy-tale lit and fairy-tale-related art, check out Terri Windling's work; Sandra and Aimee are of course amazing poets!) Soon, I'll be able to post the cover, which is so looking awesome.

Blurbs for She Returns to the Floating World…

"I deeply admire the skill with which Jeannine Hall Gailey weaves myth and folklore into poems illuminating the realities of modern life. Gailey is, quite simply, one of my favorite American poets; and She Returns to the Floating World is her best collection yet."

—Terri Windling, writer, editor, and artist (editor, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series and collections like The Armless Maiden, as well as The Endicott Studio)

"Kin to the extraordinary pillow book of tenth-century Japanese court poet Sei Shōnagon, Jeannine Hall Galley has created her own collection of extraordinary myths, fables, and folktales for the twenty-first century . Fed by scholarship, a passion for animé, and a singular, brilliant imagination, this poet designs female heroes who challenge and transform our quotidian lives."

—Sandra Alcosser, author of Except by Nature

"The poems in Gailey's highly anticipated second collection mesmerize the reader with its glimmering revisitations of myth that explore love and desire via the most unexpected conduits: foxes, robots, and the "kingdom of animé." She Returns to the Floating World is a captivating gathering of poems written with the rare but immense knowledge of (the) matters of the heart and the often-ecstatic natural world. Gailey illuminates our place within myth with stunning precision and the awareness of what it really means to be fully alive with the ones you love."

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of At the Drive-in Volcano and Lucky Fish

"These poems fuse figures and narratives from Japanese myths and folklore, Shinto spirits, philosophy and popular culture to explore the nexus between the spiritual and the sensual, places where the act of touching is both metaphorical and sometimes violently, painfully physical. Amid musings on the darker corners of Japan's postwar legacy are flashes of the humor born of perseverance. Even Godzilla has a cameo."

—Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica

Now, to hunker down for a snow day tomorrow. And I've got books to review (Dana Levin's Sky Burial and Erika Meitner's Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls - pretty great reading, don't you think?)

All-Poetry, All-the-Time, or Why I'm Glad to Be Back in Seattle

Some things make you feel really feel like you're back "home." Like when the sun comes out in February, and you can see Mount Rainier (or a big full moon.) Like going over to your friend's house for a poetry group meeting - a group that's been meeting regularly for almost eight (nine?) years - and listening to your poet friend's war stories and poems, hearing their good news and discouragements, shared over hot tea and plates of snacks. Like going back to a poetry reading series I used to help with - the SoulFood Books series - and seeing Lana and Michael. The guest poet last night was Tom C. Hunley, publisher of my first book. He's a funny, laconic deliverer of poems. He also said that Becoming the Villainess is Steel Toe Books' bestseller (Yay! that warmed my heart!) I'm also going to participate in another Seattle ritual tomorrow, and attend a poetry reading at Open Books - Mary Ruefle is in town!

All the socializing and poetry-izing is wearing me out, but in a good way. I feel like my life's pace has quickened from the gradual, laconic heartbeat of California life to a caffeine-buzzed doubletime here in Seattle. More people to see, more stuff to do. It's a poetry-stuffed town! In fact, I missed two readings this week already! But I wrote a new long poem, I sent out a few subs, I heard back from some lit mags, and Glenn is still dusting up his poetry submission database system we've been working on since December. (Much more thorough than my Excel spreadsheet, I can say that.) I also know I need to get on the ball and start booking readings for my new book this fall and next spring. If you feel like you'd love to have me come out to your conference or college, to read a bunch of poems about love, marriage, Japanese anime, etc, please let me know! I am feeling bashful about asking this time around, but I'm not sure why. The ARCs should be ready in a couple of months...it's getting so close!

Happy Valentine's Day - News and Love Poems

Happy Valentine's Day!

First of all, you may have already read about Eduardo C. Corral's good news – he has won the Yale Younger Poets Prize! I've been admiring Eduardo's poetry since I discovered his blog in 2005, so I felt really happy about this. A great Valentine!

A nice shout-out from one of my mythology heroines, artist and writer Terri Windling, here.

I was honored to be nominated not once, but twice, for something called a Memetastic Blog Award, once by Marie Gauthier and the other time by Kristin Berkey-Abbott. (I will post more fully on this later, but wanted to thank them both for the nomination!

Two love poems from my new book, She Returns to the Floating World (due out in July from Kitsune Books!)


Maybe in this version you are a bird, and I have become an old woman. Maybe you ate a falling star. It's hard to love someone in a castle—they always feel distant. I will open a flower shop and learn to speak German, take to wearing ruffled dresses and straw hats. You'd like to pin me down, but you could tell my feet weren't touching the ground. I called your name over and over, but you couldn't hear me above the din of the bombers. It was like movies of wartime Japan. I looked up and there were planes bulging with smoke.

The blue sky kept getting darker –
sometimes, I thought,
with your shadow.

In the end, I have a dog in my arms and a scarecrow for a friend, but I never make it to Kansas. The field is wet and stormy, I kiss three men goodnight for their magic. The door to your childhood is opening for me. It allows me passage into a brick wall, my fists full of shiny black feathers, the shell of an egg, the howl of cold wind against a mountain. Don't worry, your heart is in good hands. Let me keep it a little longer; its blue glow illuminates everything.


The thick knife gleams under your strong hands,
slicing carrot, onion, garlic, pepper,
scattering slivers into the air,
staining your fingers with their gold juices.
You chop so quickly the definite line
between "hand" and "knife" dissolves.
You strew pieces into the skillet,
listen for the right sting and sizzle of oil and wine,
waiting to feed me the work of your hands,
that broken finger, the tiny cuts
that lace and scar your surfaces.

Optimism Despite...

I've been thinking about optimism, about how it applies to life as a writer. How we must remain optimistic despite...despite rejections, despite days when you despair of ever writing what you're really meant to write, despite the long hours and low pay, despite the evidence that the writing world is still a man's world, etc. We keep writing. We keep sending out our work.

In my "real" life, I sometimes encounter a similar...intractability...with my health situations. I can do one of two things - I can despair, weep, shake my head, give up and lie in bed and not try to do anything, or I can embrace life, try different treatments, try to research and come up with better answers than the doctors give, and do the things that make life worth living, having fun, etc. Keep breathing, keep living every day and make every one as full as you can possibly make it.

This week I embraced optimism in both my regular life and my writing. I sent things out. I took a ton of benadryl and went ahead and went out with other writers. I put blonde streaks in my hair. I bought jeans that fit - a smaller size than I've been since high school, thanks to food allergy testing and those darn elimination diets - instead of walking around in old clothes that were too big. I requested a review copy of a book I'm absolutely loving. I received some tentative good news. I applied for jobs I might not get, but at least I will know I tried. I made reservations for a reading down in Southern California in two weeks, which I probably can't afford, and tomorrow I'm having two friends - an artist and a writer that I rarely get to see - over for a visit. My house is full of pink tulips and pink lilies, because in February, we need to remember spring is almost here.

And you know what? These actions are the things I want to define me, not my rejections or my weird sporadic health problems. I choose fun, friends, pink tulips, and poetry, along with a little bit of chocolate. (See? I'm even cheating my elimination diet a little. But what is life without a little dairy-free, gluten-free chocolate? And it's almost Valentine's Day!)

In other literary news you might find interesting...more recaps from AWP, Claudia Rankine's letter on race and poetry, and my friend sci-fi writer Felicity Shoulder's Asimov's story on Escape Pod...

Even more numbers trouble...

So, AWP is over, and the talk of the literary town is some new "numbers trouble:"

Vida shows women's books aren't being reviewed equitably.

The New Republic says, not only are women not being reviewed, they're not being published equitably either, even by independent presses. (And PS - the gatekeeper (male) editors at the top lit mags aren't publishing women equitably, either. Except, surprisingly, Poetry.)

The thing to keep in mind when looking at those percentages is thinking about the fact that more women than men buy books, so sensibly, we should be running the joint!

This kind of thing can be discouraging for a young woman writer. I know it is for me. I think about the actions I can take: buy books by women, review books by women, support magazines and publishers who publish women equitably, etc. In the classes in which I have a say, I teach a 50/50 mix of men and women, or pretty close. If I had unlimited funds, I would totally start a press. But it kind of hurts when you're trying to psych yourself up to send out a poetry packet, or a book manuscript, or a review query, and you let yourself think: these folks publish less than 25% women. And those women are usually already famous. Dang.

What do you all think?

How to Survive Not Going to AWP DC

How to Survive Not Going to AWP DC

So, for whatever reason, money, health, job, family, you find yourself not going to AWP this year. If you want to cheer yourself up, my advice is to try to simulate the experience as closely as possible. Please include your own suggestions in the comments!

--Throw some dirty snow on yourself. Maybe roll around in it. Stand outside in whatever inclement weather your neighborhood provides. Make sure you're carrying something heavy, like a bag full of books.
--Make yourself an awesome name tag (you don't have to use your real name) and try to sell books to passers-by on the street. They don't even have to be your books!
--If you're lucky enough to live in Seattle, Boulder, or Boston, go to your local poetry-only bookstore and complain about how you can't afford to buy everything you want. Pick up several obscure literary magazines you've never heard of, just to mix things up. If you have no poetry-only bookstore, any independent bookstore will suffice. Flirt with the person behind the register.
--Pick a bar in your area crowded with weary conventioneers – it doesn't matter what kind, software sales, concrete machinery, whatever – and try to start your own drunken poetry reading. Bonus points for getting others to join you!

Wishes for AWP, my recommended sidetrips from the conference, and crash courses

While life is giving me a crash course in food allergies (anaphylaxis versus intolerance, IGE tests versus IGG - these phrases were a foreign language just a few months ago!) I'm thinking about the upcoming AWP and wishing I could see all your shining faces there next week! I've always had fun (exhausting fun, but still fun) at the AWPs I've gone to, and have missed it the last couple of years. I'm going for sure next year, and of course AWP 2014, but that's small comfort this year.

So, in service to all of you AWP-goers, and as someone who used to know DC pretty well - I worked there for six months - make sure you make a few side-trips outside of the conference:
--Check out the Smithsonian; I personally love the Natural History stuff, but them I'm a lover of dinosaurs. And the Smithsonian's free! Tax dollars at work, people.
--Some awesome art museums, including the National Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
--Go about fifteen miles into Northern Virginia to Great Falls National Park. It's so beautiful, you can hardly believe it's right outside the city. I stopped there all the time when I commuted to DC from Richmond.
--Some terrific food to be had in Georgetown, if you can manage the traffic. 1789 is (higher end) traditional DC done right, Cafe Bonaparte is all about wonderful French-ified brunches (crepes!) Just stopping by some place for coffee is fun. Wander around on foot if possible.
--One night, be sure you order gigantic room service sundaes. I don't remember how it started but this was a tradition in our family when we visited DC for Dad's business trips.

Most importantly, remember to blog about your adventures, especially the juicy stuff. Because I want to live vicariously!