Jeannine Hall Gailey's Blog, page 38

Holiday Edition: Writer Dates, Vision Boards, Lit Mags and Managing Holiday Expectations

Kelli and I

A Wonderful Day Spent with Poet Kelli Russell Agodon – The Importance of Creative Friends

This time of year, it can be hard to squeeze in visiting with friends – but it feels also especially important for creative types to spend time with other creative types, to encourage each other, talk shop with someone, and remind ourselves we are not totally alone on our journeys. I was so happy Kelli came out to my side of town and we practiced shooting author photos (for our soon-to-be-taken-by-amazing-publishers books, of course) as well as goofy photos and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard while shooting pictures. Usually I focus on wildlife, so this is a totally different skill set! I think you’ll see Kelli is as gifted a photographer as she is a poet.

Vision Board 2019

Approaching Solstice, End of Year Poetry Thoughts and Vision Board 2019

So, it’s about to be the solstice, the shortest day of the year. I’ve gotten some really nice publications in the last few months (as well as a few rejections in the last week – everyone is clearing the deck) so I am focusing on feeling grateful for the good and trying to think of next year as a better year for my health, for building friendships in my creative community, and for publishing!

You can make fun of vision boards all you like, but I’m terrible at visual arts and so it’s good for me to practice trying to collage and put things together that are hopeful. (MS therapists literally gave me homework like cutting paper, coloring things in and other arts-and-crafts basics because apparently it helps our brains!) I’ve got a magic corner, a creative corner, a wellness corner, and a happiness corner. These last two years have been tough, I’m not going to lie. But I’m hoping good things lie ahead!

Sylvia with Tahoma Literary Review’s newest issue

Here’s a picture of kitten Sylvia (going on two years old now, but still as kitten-ish as ever!) with the new issue of Tahoma Literary Review, which is beautiful! We’ve got to celebrate the literary good things when they happen.

Managing Holiday Expectations

The holidays can be hard. The expectations, the travel, the family angst, the present-buying-card-sending-cleaning-cooking rituals can sometimes overwhelm. Especially women can feel like making a ‘perfect’ holiday is their responsibility, but you know what? Life isn’t perfect, it’s full of surprises, both welcome and unwelcome, and I think it’s important to take some down time as a time to let in the dark but light a fire, drink some hot tea or hot chocolate, spend some time considering the last year and what we’re looking for in the new year, and hopefully, spending some time with people who you love and who reflect love back at you. Except in Hallmark movies, no one has a perfect life, so there is no such thing as a perfect holiday.

A favorite ornament – carousel horse

Try to rest and have some fun. If you like seeing holiday lights like I do, take advantage of non-stormy-crazy-rain-or-ice days to see some. If spending time around plants or animals cheers you up, visit the zoo or a conservatory or botanical garden. See a movie during the afternoon on a weekday. Stay in pajamas and don’t do laundry for a day. I’ve got to do some unpleasant things in the next week (dental work, physical therapy, blood tests) but I try to sneak in as much good stuff as I can, including reading books of poetry and novels that I didn’t get to during the rest of the year. I also try to write a little, maybe set a few goals, take advantage of seasonal health-boosters like cranberries and sweet potatoes (cranberry sorbet in sparkling water? sweet potato hash for breakfast? Yes!) I wish you a very happy holiday season, but take it easy on yourself. Let things be imperfect. Allow yourself to be happy and practice kindness – to yourself and others – in small increments.

PS A very good holiday present for the poet in your life might be PR for Poets, a book to help poets prepare for how to learn the basics about marketing their poetry books! And of course I’m happy to send signed copies of any of my books to family and friends – just contact me

Lots to Celebrate Edition- New Poems up at the newly relaunched Shenandoah and SWWIM, Zoolights and Red Panda Cubs, Thanks to Escape Into Life for a Pushcart Nomination

Glenn and I amid barn-themed holiday decor

Lots to Celebrate Edition
Pushcart Nomination from Escape Into Life

It’s easy to get a little grumpy this time of year – holiday stress, trying to get things done, waking up to cold and dark. Sometimes I get awfully discouraged by the poetry world. But I hope you will join me in celebrating today. It is a good day to remember to be grateful.

First of all, thanks to Kathleen Kirk and Escape Into Life for nominating my poem “Blood Moon, Flare, Coyote” for a Pushcart Prize – and you can read all their Pushcart-nominated poems here. My friend Karen Weyant is up there with me! So excited.

Two New Poems Up at Shenandoah and SWWIM!

And a big thank you to SWWIM for publishing my poem, “Scar,” as today’s featured poem.

And after over a decade of submitting to Shenandoah, I have a poem in their newly relaunched issue. When Beth Staples, who recently took over the literary journal at Washington and Lee, sent me the e-mail a few months ago, I was in shock. A dream journal for me for sure, and happy to be part of the relaunch. The poem is called “Introduction to Writer’s Block.” It’s also an extremely personal poem for me, as it describes trying to write poetry again after a severe MS flare hospitalized me last fall, and I was struggling with memory loss and aphasia, trying to literally find my words again. Anyway, so happy to be in the issue!

ZooLights and Baby Red Pandas at the Woodland Park Zoo

I mentioned in an earlier blog post how we’ve had a rare week of sun in usually gray and dark December here in Seattle, and we took advantage of it to go check out the Woodland Park Zoo’s new pair of female red panda cubs. It had been a long time since I’d seen red panda cubs, which are just about the most adorable (and fairly rare) animal on the planet. They will only be there for a few months. I spent about forty minutes in the freezing cold just gasping at the cuteness and taking about 150 pictures!

Then, just as we were leaving, they switched on the “Zoo Lights” so we did a quick tour of those, too, after visiting the snow leopards. And whoops, another red panda in a hammock!

Today the morning is clear and cold again, Stellar jays darting in the trees, hummingbirds around our feeders. I am looking forward to seeing some writer and artist friends for “art dates” in the next two weeks. I am thankful for publishers who send out royalty checks (this time, thanks to Two Sylvias – they always send royalty checks right before the holidays, which seems a lucky time to get a check) and thankful for people who volunteer at our zoo to keep red pandas and snow leopards alive and healthy, thankful to all people who create art – and those who support art with their time and money. I am thankful for days I have enough energy to get up and go out of the house to experience the lucky world I have around me – flowers, trees, holiday lights – and thankful that this year I am not as sick as I was last year around this time. I am starting to think, in a hopeful way, about 2019. May it be a better year for all of us.

New Poem Up in Tahoma Literary Review, Holiday Lights at Bellevue Botanical Gardens, Flat Tires and Holiday Poetry Shopping

Panorama of Bellevue Botanical Gardens Holiday Lights

New Poem Up at Tahoma Literary Review

Thank you to Tahoma Literary Review for including my poem “Flare” in their latest issue, which you can order a print or e-edition of here.

This is the title poem of my latest manuscript, so I’m especially excited to see it up!

 

Poinsettia tree with dancing mushroom lights

Holiday Lights at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens

I had a few down minutes before a doctor’s appointment Monday so Glenn and I decided to take a quick detour (bundled up and bringing hot thermoses of cider with us) to see the holiday lights at Bellevue Botanical Gardens, which are pretty elaborate representations of animals and flowers. We’ve had several clear cold days this week and we really have to take advantage of our non-rainy December days, because they’re rare. It was really beautiful but I was grateful I’d worn my fuzzy boots, mittens, and earmuffs – by the end we were both freezing! You don’t get to wear your winter extras all that often out here – but we definitely needed them! It gets dark at about 4:30 PM – that’s when these pictures were taken, believe it or not, so I think Seattle-ites definitely celebrate with extra lights during the holidays – we put up our own house lights before Thanksgiving. When I’m not so sick I can’t move, I try to get out and see a couple of different holiday displays – both Woodland Park and Tacoma zoos have holiday lights festivals too, plus you get to see animals. I was shocked to see a still-blooming fuchsia, which had little white lantern flowers that looked so ghostly in the dark. It was definitely more fun than the doctor’s office! Got to squeeze in a little bit of fun when and where you can, I say.

Flat Tire Surprise and a Little Holiday Poetry Shopping at Open Books

We noticed a flat tire when we got home, and this will shock others our age – most of the newer cars (including our 1.5 year old Acura) do not come with spare tires, so Glenn has to take off the tire, find the hole and patch it up! There is so much construction around our doctor’s office, Redmond, and Bellevue it’s not too much of a surprise that we ran over a screw or nail somewhere but we hadn’t had a blown tire in a long time!

Open Books Display of Speculative Poetry

Back safely on the road, we were able to stop in yesterday at Open Books for a little holiday shopping. I was in a positive surprise – I saw my book, Field Guide to the End of the World, on the display table under “speculative poetry” right next to Tracy K. Smith! And then I got to chat about speculative poetry with Luther and Billie at the store, which, along with seeing holiday lights, might be one of my favorite things.

I bought a few books as gifts and a few for me – so I ended up leaving with more books than I meant to, but it’s a great time to support your local indie poetry bookstore AND give poetry books, so I had no buyer’s remorse at all.

Open Books Poetry Haul – gifts (and some for me!)

 

Leaving Space for a Little Magic

Glenn and I at Willows Lodge

Leaving Room for a Little Magic

I had been sick for almost a month, just running a fever and too tired to do much out and about. Just this week, the fever sort of evaporated. I decided to go out and get my hair done before the holiday crush really started. Glenn went grocery shopping during the haircut. We were pretty tired, it wasn’t nice outside, but it was Friday night and I had just been talking with Glenn about how being sick (and other things) had stolen our opportunities for real dates and after 24 years of marriage (!!), going on dates seemed important to stay connected. Sometimes I miss the things where I just feel like a normal person, not a person being checked for cancer or being treated for MS or whatever, just a regular human. So I threw on a glitter sequin top that I thought I’d never have an opportunity to wear (I already had gold glitter hairspray on, thanks to my hairdresser) and Glenn fixed his hair and we decided to go see the live music down the street at our local fancy hotel with a wine bar, Willows Lodge – and I loved their Christmas decorations and giant stone fireplace. We had just sat down and put in an order while listening to a jazz trio play the “Game of Thrones” theme song – which tickled me. I was just listening to music, relaxing into a chair, when a woman approached us with two free tickets to a VIP wine and chocolate event at Columbia Winery next door since her friends hadn’t been able to show. My experience with life tells me, sometimes, when the universe offers you something strange, you should say yes. (Unless it’s timeshares-related.) The tickets were worth $85 apiece! So after we finished listening to the music and Glenn had some local hard cider (peach ginger!) and sweet potato fries (I highly recommend a visit there on a weekend evening for dates – we were in during Happy Hour and made it out for under $15!) we set out for the second half of our spontaneous date night.

Glenn and I at Columbia Winery’s wine and chocolate holiday event

We wondered over to Columbia Winery, which we had never visited. (You may know I can’t drink alcohol, and Glenn isn’t a huge drinker, so we aren’t really the best wine-country explorers, despite having lived in Napa and being surrounded by dozens of small wineries and tasting rooms here in Woodinville.) Well, the “gala” had fancy people in ball gowns and expensive shoes that all seemed to know each other, tons of stations where you could try wines from all kinds of different wineries, from port to sparkling to a ton of reds with chocolate pairings. There was live music and a huge buffet. It felt like maybe the fanciest thing we’d been to since the Microsoft party at the Four Seasons the first year I worked there  – and that was eighteen years ago! We wandered around talking to winemakers and Glenn got to try three or four wines and a lot of chocolate and cheese (he said the small wineries reminded him of the small publishers at the AWP bookfair – the smallest ones are so happy to talk about their work and show it off!) and we took pictures of the decor and checked out the wine-scented candles. For a night we expected nothing, feeling a little tired with the dismal weather (and trapped by a closed bridge to downtown Seattle all weekend,)  we ended up having a surprising and glamorous (and mostly free) date night!

Since I was not tipsy, just energized from all the unexpected magical date night things (and Glenn, even a little tipsy, made us a fantastic duck dinner with mashed potatoes and asparagus when we got home) and filled with a weird sense of what I think might have been “happiness” and “hopefulness,” I got into my softest pajamas, turned on a Christmas movie and settled in at my laptop. I sent my manuscript to a publisher, finished an editing project I’d been worrying over, and went to sleep remembering for a second what it was like when Glenn and I were first dating, before all the rigamarole with health problems and money worried and other adult-type worries. I remembered what it was like to just allow yourself to enjoy life without worrying about the things that might go wrong. Sometimes if we leave a little space and dress up in some glitter, we might discover a little magic.

Watch this Space!

I have poems upcoming in a week in the new issues of Shenandoah and Another Chicago Magazine. I’ll post when they go up. By the way, those are two places I’ve been longing to be published in for years. That’s a little bit of magic, too, for sure. I even got a $100 check in the mail for one poem! How often does that happen? (I try not to think about how many submission fees that will cover – a bunch of lit mag submissions, or three book submission fees?) In poetry, as in life, we have to allow for good surprises and yes, magic. A friend of mine got his book taken at a great press this week. And I thought, it’s been a great book for a long time – the magic happens when all you need is one big yes.

Coincidentally, Redmond was celebrating the lighting of the holiday tree yesterday – we got stuck in in the traffic – and today is the start of Hanukkah, which I always try to celebrate by making a few recipes for the season. I grew up with lots of friends who were Jewish, so I get nostalgic for the Hanukkah foods I miss from my childhood – latkes, rugelach (here’s a gluten-free FODMAP-friendly recipe, in case you also miss this treat and also can’t eat wheat.) So happy Festival of Lights, and happy beginning to the crazed holiday season. I’ve made plans to go see some writer friends for coffee and even attend a party or two if I can stay well long enough! I have to remember to pencil in space for magic, even when I feel discouraged, tired, wet, and like the cold fog might overwhelm me. You never know when the universe will hand you a reason to wear your glitter!!

A New Poem in Scoundrel Time, Talking About Poetry Projects, Giving Tuesday and Women-Run-or-Owned Lit Mags and Presses

Scoundrel Time

A New Poem up at Scoundrel Time

Thank you to Daisy Fried and Scoundrel Time for featuring one of my more environmental/apocalypse poems yesterday, “Self-Portrait as Mass Extinction Event.”

Writing on a Poetry Project

Someone noted in a post I talked about writing “on a project” and “outside of a project,” and asked me to talk a little bit about writing on poetry projects. I don’t usually start a book project knowing in advance what the book is going to be about. Usually I start by getting interested in a certain topic, then more interested, then research that topic, writing a bunch of poems around it, and then later noticing that the poems seem to cluster around a certain subject, and exploring that topic in different ways. Usually I decide I have a book project when I get about fifty poems that hang together, and then I work on arranging, filling gaps, and maybe examining the subject in a different way or in different forms.

In fact, I can feel a little un-moored when I don’t have a subject or topic I’m working on, but it’s a necessary part of the process, because I don’t think anyone’s book should start out over-determined, and we need some creative open spaces – just like it’s good to get out of the house, even in this kind of cold and rainy season, to remind ourselves of the beauties and possibilities of the larger world. It’s especially important, when you’ve maybe reached the end of a large project, you’ve sort of exhausted a subject, and you want to start to explore again. It’s a good time to try a different type of poetry and to read more widely and even to use poetry prompts to get your brain working in a new way.  I like to read novels and books of literary biography and writers’ letters in between projects, to give my mind something new to work on. Different voices that can help me develop my own writing in a different way – this seems especially true for me when I read books in translation. I hope this was helpful!

Giving Tuesday and Women-Run-and-Owned Literary Magazines and Presses

You’re probably tired of the onslaught of shopping e-mails and announcements after the weekend, but today is kind of a nice break – it’s a day of giving back.

If you have literary organizations or presses that you feel have supported you, today’s a great day to give. If you love animals, or want to support a certain medical charity (for me, it’s the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis) or want to make a difference in people’s lives by donating to a women’s shelter, today most donations will be matched and doubled. Giving to people afflicted by the hurricanes or fires this year is also something to think about. You can make a difference and I think it makes me feel a little more helpless in the face of bad news.

I asked a few days ago for people to give me the names of their favorite women-run-and-owned literary magazines and presses, because I think it’s important, just like voting for more women in Congress if we want to see our interests represented, for women writers to support literary projects run by women and for women. So here are a few that were suggested yesterday on Facebook. Sorry I didn’t put links up to them all, only those that were posted as links (I’m running off to fix a cracked tooth at the dentist today) but at least it will give you a place to start. This is not an exhaustive list, just what came up as suggestions from my wonderful Facebook friends! Think about choosing one (or more) of them for submissions, buying gifts, and donations today. More suggestions welcome in the comments, too – I know this is not all of them!

Aqueduct Press, Dancing Girl Press Earth’s Daughters, Feminist Press, No Chair Press, Mayapple Press,  Passager, So to Speak Journal, Two Sylvias Press, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Headmistress Press, SWWIM, Gazing Grain, White Stag, Rogue Agent,  Agape Editions, FemKu Magazine,  Porkbelly Press, The Offing,  Shade Mountain Press, Psaltery & Lyre, Calyx, Scoundrel Time, Riddled with Arrows, Shenandoah and Lavender.

 

Small Business Saturday, an Interview with Riddled with Arrows, and a Little Goodish Health News Update

This year’s Christmas Tree

Beginning the Holiday Celebration

Yesterday we recovered from Thanksgiving (which was wonderful) by eating leftovers, working on poetry manuscripts (both mine and another person’s, and decorating the Christmas tree while playing new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the background. this year’s tree decor theme included hedgehogs, many birds, butterflies, and robots. (We’re an eclectic home.)

We got to see my brother and his wife for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful visit and Glenn made a dinner so fantastic that I can’t imagine anything better at a restaurant (duck, cornbread bread pudding, mini delicata squash stuffed with cranberry apple chutney, snap peas and green beans in mustard vinaigrette.) Our traditional desserts were pumpkin cheesecakes with pear caramel on top and cranberry meringue pie. I should have taken more pictures but we were having too much fun eating and then visiting and laughing.  I went to sleep feeling, for once, and probably because I ignored the news all day, that all was right with the world.

Small Business Saturday and a Sale from Two Sylvias Press for PR for Poets!

I resisted shopping on Black Friday yesterday and will spend money today instead on Small Business Saturday, where you support small presses and local shops. This includes my own publisher of PR for Poets and She Returns to the Floating World, Two Sylvias Press.

An announcement from Two Sylvias Press:

On sale this weekend! The bestselling PR for Poets: A Guidebook for Publicity & Marketing by Jeannine Hall Gailey!  Use Coupon Code: HappyReading at checkout! Shop here: https://buff.ly/2R0WVPr  #BlackFriday #SmallBizSaturday #CyberMonday #ShopIndie

An Interview with Riddled with Arrows

Thanks to Shannon and Riddled with Arrows for this interview. You can check it out here:

On Loving Poetry: An Interview Triptych

Thanksgiving Full Moon with Clouds

Some Goodish Holiday Weekend Health News

Yesterday I got the results of my abdominal MRI report, and while I still had “numerous” tumors/lesions on the liver that looked metastatic, the lack of growth or change in eighteen months indicated “that they were benign or at least indolent.” (Yes, I did write a poem with that quote.) It’s a relief every time you get this information, even though I shouldn’t worry every time they run that MRI, I do.

I felt really energetic after getting that report in the mail. I went through and cleaned out my office space, which had become a repository for, um, everything I didn’t know what to do with, started a table for holiday gifts for friends and family (I start thinking about holiday gifts in January of the year before, so…) I wrote a poem, I edited a manuscript I’ve been working on, and I went through a brand new project – the beginnings of my seventh poetry manuscript, revolving around witchcraft, revolt, and the theme of enchantment. Glenn and I enjoyed eating leftovers (delicata squash macaroni and cheese, duck, avocado and cranberry on corn tortillas) finding our holiday boxes in the basement, and decorating our Christmas tree. The cats immediately jumped in the boxes. It was all very festive, and I was happy to have good news to celebrate over the weekend. Now, if only we can get the liver tumors to shrink or disappear, and then the brain lesions heal, that would be great! LOL. Seriously, thanks to everyone for their good thoughts on my behalf. Started running a fever again yesterday and today, but I am going to re-apply rest and fluids until I get all the way better. I am wishing you all a happy holiday weekend – don’t wear yourself out, try to have some fun with the rituals, and go visit a local independent bookstore if you can.

Holiday Shopping Suggestions – Writers, Artists, Zoo and Museum Memberships and More Ideas!

Happy holidays from Woodinville!

Holiday Shopping Suggestions for Writers, Artists, and More

You’ll be getting Black Friday suggestions in your e-mail or on your phone, so I thought I’d remind you of some wonderful gift ideas outside the box.

Support art! It’s a great time of year to support your favorite writer or artist – I’ve been trying to buy something from an artist at least once a year! Two of my favorite artists are Rene Lynch and Michaela Eaves. (Not only are both wonderful artists, but both do a lot for great causes!) A great place to check out local artists here on the East side of Seattle is VALA Eastside.

I also like to give a family gift that involves an experience, like a family museum membership or if you have family with kids that are animal lovers, maybe a membership to the zoo! They’ll remember it a lot longer than that Christmas sweater! Poetry lovers on your list might love a subscription to their favorite literary magazine or a copy of the latest Poet’s Market. And writers never say no to more notebooks and pens.

Keep Someone from Getting Too Blue – Volunteering, Self-Care, and Sending Love

A cure for the blues? Blue holiday scene!

This is a tough time of year for a lot of people, what with the darkness, the stress, missing loved ones…so do something to cheer someone up! Take a friend out to coffee, or have dinner with a relative you may ot see that often. Maybe a phone call to a long-distance friend, or send someone some flowers or a box of chocolates unexpectedly. I think self-care is super important, but equally important is nurturing the people around us that we are thankful for!

I used to volunteer at Children’s Hospitals this time of year, or donate toys, and both can really help read adjust seasonal expectations. Even finding somewhere to spend an hour feeling grateful – whether that’s out on a mountain trail, or in a garden, or a church or temple – and donating a few canned goods can be something that fights the blues. And of course, drinking hot chocolate (or a glass of wine) and reading a book for an hour instead of running errands can bring you a little more cheer, so have energy for the rest of the season. (Even if your book is 1000 pages of Sylvia Plath letters – yes, that is what I’m reading at night right now – cheery!)

Of course, some poetry books for this holiday – or a book for the practicing poet about how to promote their books!

Sylvia recommends PR for Poets for any of your writer friends who want to learn about promoting their books!

Yes, I try not to be too commercial, but buying a book from a small press or even just leaving an Amazon review can make a giant difference in a writer’s outlook.

So, if you are interested in getting a signed copy from me of PR for Poets, or Field Guide to the End of the World, or any of my books, follow these links. And I will really appreciate it and try to include a little something extra in there (and am happy to sign to a special someone.)

Looking for a few more poetry book recommendations? This isn’t even half of what I’ve read and enjoyed this year, but I thought this would be somewhere to start if you were looking for gifts for a poetry-loving friend…

 

 

Here’s a list of more new books I think would make great gifts!

Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumuathil from Copper Canyon Press – a wonderful collection that celebrates nature, diversity, and I can’t think of anyone who would hate this book.

Barbie Chang by Victoria Chang from Copper Canyon Press. Victoria Chang takes on the difficult subjects of race and class in America through the lens of Barbie and Jane Austen in a really smart, fun way.

A Nation (Imagined) by Natasha K. Moni Floating Bridge Press – Super timely exploration of what being the child of immigrants in America means right now and how it is to be part of the world and simultaneously an outside observer.

Electrical Theories of Femininity (from Black Radish Books) by Sarah Mangold – Feminism, science and computers? You had me at hello.

My Story of The Benefits of Wasting Time up at the Mighty, Fall Scenes in Woodinville, Anxiety and MRIs

Woodinville in November on the Sammamish River Trail

Thanks to The Mighty – My Story on the Life-Saving Benefits of Wasting Time is Up!

I hope this will be helpful to some of you! My personal essay “How Wasting Time Has Benefited Me with Chronic Illnesses” is up – I am a bit of a newbie with personal essays so I’m really excited to have this one published at The Mighty, and I’m especially excited because it includes my first ever published photo credit!  I started doing photography as a hobby back when I had that nasty cancer diagnosis two years ago now, and I haven’t stopped – I took photography classes back in high school, but the new digital cameras make the endeavor a completely a different kind of challenge – some things easier, some things harder – but I definitely don’t miss the chemicals! I may not have the phone selfie completely down yet, but I’m enjoying keeping a record of trees, flowers, and birds as I go.

November Rain and Un-Fun Anxiety-Provoking Things (Dental Work, MRIs) are Looming…

Mount Rainier, sunset, November

This morning it is raining here but I know the midwest and east coast got hit with scary snow and ice storms yesterday. November insists on proceeding whether we want it to or not, so we have to get out and appreciate the few days of sunshine we have left this year. I’ve got a few un-fun things coming up – today, an abdominal MRI to check on my liver, and some emergency dental work (I broke a filling – ow! Crumbling teeth are a drag…) a few days after Thanksgiving. Not things I would want to do for fun, sadly, but necessary nonetheless. Today I will think positive thoughts for shrinking (disappearing) liver tumors and I will try to keep my broken tooth from breaking further for another week! My ankles are both getting better so I hope to be almost normal by the holidays…

But At Least the Holidays are Coming…

Next week, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving my little brother and his wife, which will be good. This is a picture of me at the local farm stand – a benefit of living in wine and farm country – which brings apples, pears, squash and other goodies from cabbage to carrots from their Eastern Washington farm locations as well as the little patches of things they grow here. I’ve been craving carrots, and they have these really ugly stubby yellow, blue, and orange carrots that taste amazing when we slow-roast them. I’ve been working on my own little garden – planted some bulbs, got rid of some leaves, replanted some things from containers to the ground. Sadly discovered our local deer had eaten the leaves off of a couple of my treasured plants – including a pink lilac (cry!) but that is part of sharing a garden with nature. Next stop – putting up some holiday lights! It sounds like it’s early, but honestly, it is so dark so early (4:30 PM is darkness time) that we need something to brighten things up. I don’t get a chance to travel much for the holidays these days, which it forces me to pay closer attention to the small beauties of winter in the Pacific Northwest, and spend time with friends I might not get a chance to see otherwise. What are your favorite holiday traditions? I love going out to the Bellevue Botanical and Zoo holiday lights, visiting the big hotels (like here in Woodinville, Willows Lodge, and in downtown Seattle, the Sorrento,) doing their fancy decor and lit fireplaces that seem like the perfect place to talk about art and poetry over a glass of something warm, the chance to spend time guilt-free in bookstores (hey, you’re buying presents, right?) Happy season of reading-and-writing! Hope you are keeping yourself surrounded by light.

 

Fighting Back Against SAD with Penguins and Holiday Scenes, A Poet Interview with Wombwell Rainbow, and More Cancer Tests and Poetry Lessons from Plath

Glenn and I pose with Molbak’s holiday mountain lodge scene

How to Fight the SAD with Holiday Scenes and Zoos

The days are so short now it is so dark after 4 PM that I can’t see my way to the car. That’s on top of the rain, the bad news that trickles in. I have a LOT of medical stuff to get through by the end of the year (including another cancer check this Friday), I’ve been sick with the sinus/respiratory sort of bug seemingly forever, I sprained an ankle a couple of days ago. Watching the horrible fires in California has been heart-wrenching, the smoke has finally arrived up here to cloud the air (and Facebook reminded me it’s been seven years since I moved back here from California – we only lived there for two years, and both places we lived succumbed to fire – and one to fire AND earthquake. Love to all my California people.) So this is the time of year that you just settle in under a blanket to read your new Murakami and your new volume of Plath letters, and just, well, maybe I could use a little break from that to cheer up.

So, whenever we had a little promise of sun, or I got so stir-crazy I couldn’t stand it, Glenn would whisk me up – cane, extra layers, a travel mug of hot tea – and go do something to cheer me up. One day it was the zoo – I had to use my wheelchair – we were hoping to get a glimpse of the new red panda cubs but apparently missed it by a week – but on our brief (less than one hour to see the whole zoo) whirlwind tour, the sun was shining, the penguins and flamingos and wolves were beautiful (and a local bird showed up for a photobomb.) I love animals – did I mention I took a class at the Cincinnati Zoo as an undergrad biology major and almost became a zoo worker? By the way, a beginning zoo worker at the time with a degree in zoology made about $26,000 a year. The jaguar and tiger were both out and the snow leopards – a mother and yearling – were very active. The gray wolves – which look like white ghosts in the woods – were so beautiful. And the flowers were blooming, as if by magic – pink camellia, roses, and a few others I couldn’t name.

 

The other day, it was pouring rain, so he took me to our local gardening center, Molbak’s, which is this crazy Woodinville store with a coffee shop and a thousand kinds of plants and trees and flowers and, at holiday time, about a hundred holiday scenes to goof around and pose in. I also, I am sad to say, came home with several more things than I needed (curse you, holiday ornaments that look like owls or arctic foxes!)

An Interview with Me!

Thanks to Paul Brookes, there is a new interview with me up at Wombwell Rainbow today!

Cancer Tests and Lessons from Plath

Yes, it’s been nearly two years since they discovered that my liver had a bunch of tumors in it, which look like cancer, but may or may not be cancer, so I have to keep having tumor marker tests and getting MRIs to make sure they haven’t spread or grown. I don’t like having MRIs, and I don’t like being reminded of the many many thing that are wrong with me, so these tests always put me in a bit one edge. I’m also claustrophobic and I lost my liver cancer specialist when he took a new job on the East coast, so I’m meeting with a new guy at the end of the month. My MS new drug stuff has been put on hold briefly because the MS drug can be dangerous for livers, so I’ve got to go complete a whole new batch of blood work. Fun stuff, right? You can see why I’ve been needing the cheer factor.

But I’m trying to glean some lessons on surviving the tough rigors of the life of a poet from Sylvia Plath – The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2, which just came out. You know, we assume that Plath had little or no success while she was alive, but W.S. Merwin and T.S. Eliot tried to help her out, she had her first poetry book, The Colossus, in the US published by Knopf (not too shabby, even though she was discouraged that Marianne Moore gave it a bad review and she had been aiming for the Yale Younger Prize.) Even with Merwin’s good word at the New Yorker, it took her ten years to get her first poem published there, and that was after a year’s worth of back-and-forth edits on her poem. She had written and published The Bell Jar, been anthologized in several big time anthologies of American and English poetry, and been paid to read her poems on the radio. She talked of needing “a little of our callousness and brazenness to be a proper sender-out of MSS” – I definitely need that as I’m sending out my sixth book manuscript to publishers. All this is to say that she worked at poetry like a “real job,” besides being a typist, teaching, researching, and other side gigs, on top of having two babies and a pretty solidly terrible husband who messed around on her and didn’t do much cleaning up, cooking, or childcare. I think a little more money would have helped her too – she had to side hustle pretty much all the time to make ends meet. All in all a kind of cautionary tale – she had a lot of ingredients for success, and sometimes I think, if she’d waited a few years, if the medications of the time (right before the birth control pill and a bunch of mental health breakthrough drugs) had been better, if she’d cultivated friendships with women poets instead of getting so wrapped up in her toxic husband, if the literary world hadn’t been so solidly misogynist during her time – I mean, sometimes I think, if I could only tell her how successful she’ll be. She’d be around 85 now. Anyway, in no way was she a perfect person – she had a mean streak which probably lessened her social support circle and was deeply flawed as well as talented – but I do think that anyone who thought she was weak or didn’t work hard for her success should read these letters.  It’s a wonderful (and terrifying) portrait of the woman writer’s life in the late fifties and early sixties. I’ve been working my way through the letters of women with different illnesses – Flannery O’Connor’s life as a writer with her lupus, Elizabeth Bishop and her depression and alcoholism, Sylvia Plath – in order to glean something – strength? Advice? Lessons in what to do and not do? All of these women were very prodigious letter writers, too – in turns, funny, warm, bitter, and a lot about money stress and success (or the lack of it.) And women writers still get ignored, underpaid, under-reviewed, published less often by the big names. That hasn’t really gone away. I think I’m looking for a path that may not exist yet.

The Urge to Protect and Post-Election Insomnia, Looking for the Magic, and Guarding Your Mind/Time

Perfect Poet Background at local holiday display – I call this one “poet with crazy insomnia with giant moon and owl.”

The Urge to Protect and Post-Election Insomnia

I’m not going to lie – two nights in a row, I couldn’t go to sleep. I finally drift off after 3 AM only to be woken by the alarm at 7 AM, usually with a fresh dose of horrifying news. This morning it was a shooting in a neighborhood I lived in from ages 1-3, Thousand Oaks in California. Both nights when I slept, I had horrifying dreams of trying (and failing) to protect others – in one, I was a child abductee who tried to free the other children before the guy who meant to rape and kill us came back, in another, I was Wonder Woman, but couldn’t protect a dog who was shot by a supervillain called Dr. Pastrami.

I was cheered by the number of women (and the number of “firsts”) elected on election day, and more diverse people who more accurately represent the people of America (who are younger, and mostly NOT old white men.) Changing numbers of young voters and women voters were encouraging. Then the President alarmingly fired Sessions, which is definitely interfering with justice and basically spitting on the constitution, and banned another journalist from the White House (shades of The Post, which I just watched on Election night, where Nixon banned The New York Times and the Washington Post from the white house right before Watergate happened.) Oh, and after the pipe bomb thing, calling journalists the enemy of the people again. Whew. I am waiting (sadly, mostly hopelessly) for the Republicans who swore they cared about the constitution to protect out country, but I rely on the new, more female, more diverse voices in congress to move towards justice, hopefully swift justice.

snow geese in flight

Looking for Magic

I went to our local gardening store that was starting to decorate for the holidays, and this background seemed more spooky than Christmas-y, but I thought it seemed very appropriate for right now. There’s fog outside this morning. Yesterday I felt sick and cranky, running a fever and having to go to a painful physical therapy session (love for RBG, who fell and broke her ribs – I just had two ribs “realigned” after throwing them out coughing, and that was painful enough to make me cry, and I’d say I have like a level 9 pain tolerance system and breaking ribs is worse.) But as I drove to my house, exhausted and in pain, I saw a large flock of white snow geese lift off into the air – snow geese being rare in this area at this time of year, and against a rare bit of November blue sky and right afterwards, a WWI-era biplane flew right overhead. It reminded me of the magic that can appear unexpectedly.

Sylvia the cat with Sylvia’s second volume of letters

There was more magic in the mail, as a late birthday present came, Sylvia Plath’s second volume of her complete Letters, along with the latest American Poetry Review, which had poems by people I like, like Jericho Brown and Kelli Russell Agodon, so I was especially excited to read it. There is almost nothing I like better than a stretch of time with no commitments when I can sit down and read. Sylvia the cat almost immediately claimed the Plath book for herself – she knows her namesake! After finishing Finks (see previous post), I wish I could reach out through time and tell Plath that she wasn’t paranoid – her work was being suppressed and ignored because she was a woman – that presses and literary magazines were purposely ignoring women in her time – and that later, a ton of people would read and love her work. It might not have fixed her life – that ignores a host of other issues including mental illness and an abusive and unfaithful husband, not enough money and not enough of the right kind of medical care – but if she had known the inner workings of a lot of the literary world, she would have seen she was working against a huge wall of misogyny and prejudice. Just like our congress, the more that the literary world of arbiters – those giving out book contracts, prizes, and grants – represents what our culture actually looks like, in terms of diversity – the less women and people of color and anyone who thinks differently will feel like they are scaling an impossible wall to get attention for their writing.

The one benefit of the insomnia is that I am writing extra poems. I am daydreaming about presses I’d love to work with and trying to believe in my work as I send it out. And I did get an acceptance yesterday, which was nice. Hopefully a book acceptance is on the way soon…

Guarding Your Time – and Your Mind

When the news is as stressful and horrifying as it is these days (a mass shooting in 2018 an average of once every four days, political madness, etc) you have to be careful to preserve your time and your sanity. I was talking with a writer friend about how to protect our reading and writing time, how to avoid spinning our wheels on social media. I am noticing that I am putting my phone down – or even in another room – and get much more done that when I keep it nearby. She was talking about shutting off her phone or computer after fifteen minutes of social media – sounds like a great goal.

You know I love taking pictures of hummingbirds. They represent something about my soul – always in a hurry, and attracted to flowers. I think that we have to watch how to take in the stories of our world – reading books an antidote to the confusing and jarring barrage of bad news and bad things happening in the world – because they force us to slow down and consider things more deeply. Spending time with people on the phone or in real life is different than e-mail or texting – it helps us integrate with our communities.

When you’re a writer, and if you feel your writing in important, it is essential to guard your writing time. For me, it’s after everyone is asleep – when the inner editor is quieter (editors often go to sleep at 10 PM, I think) and my mind is freer to make connections. I’ve been writing poems outside of any planned “book project” – letting myself write whatever it wants, from flash fiction involving time travel to poems about Game of Thrones. It’s clear from the insomnia and nightmares that I’m sensitive to what’s going on in the world, not to mention the stress of trying to get all my medical tests and appointments in before the end of the year, when my deductible flips over and I have to start paying out of pocket again. Emily Dickinson is my symbol of the poet isolated from the world, and yet, had a tremendous life of the mind in her rooms and gardens. She really allowed herself time to write and even more, time to notice things. Instead of allowing our minds and attention to be constantly drawn to the latest scandal and tragedy (and there are plenty of those), scanning instead of truly paying attnetion, how do we hold ourselves steady? Meditation, prayer, reading and writing, and if possible (which it isn’t always, in winter) spending time out in nature. If you have other answers to this modern dilemma, let me know. How do we put into practice embracing the things that are truly important to us?