Jeannine Blogs
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Updating the Blog Roll...
Doesn't that sound like a delicious muffin or sandwich or something? Blog roll with cheese?
Anyway, check out the new folks on the blog roll like Diane Lockward and Robert Peake and many others...
and if you'd like to be added drop me a note!
Labels: bloggity biz
Pop Culture: Waste of Time or Populist Embrace of the World? Or, why poets should watch television
I've had percolating thoughts about this topic for some time, and with Comic Con in San Diego, and recently re-reading Harold Bloom and AS Byatt's dismissals of Harry Potter books, I have started to think about why I don't think of pop culture as "a waste of time." You'll notice pop culture plays a large part in the fiction and poetry I enjoy (Haruki Murakami and Denise Duhamel for instance) and in my own work. Popular Culture is an equalizing and freeing subject - just by including it you can make other people feel included in your universe, rather than excluded. I think mythology becomes much less remote and threatening to younger students, for example, when you can tie it into the latest comic book character or video game.To embrace your culture is to not look down on others - you can just hear the disapproving academic snootiness in Bloom and Byatt (whom I love, by the way, don't get me wrong) when they talk about how Harry Potter is the worst sort of popular tripe, etc. I mean, I can recognize that Rowling's prose stylings are somewhat less than impressive (repetitive paragraphs, lots of adverbs) but she has a great way with plot, and plot, along with a detailed imaginary universe, is what has driven the popularity of her books. Here's what is worthwhile about reading the Harry Potter series - you can pick up a conversation almost anywhere with anyone, and they'll have an opinion, and you'll have common ground. I feel the same way about television - saying "I don't watch television" is almost the same as saying: "I don't want to take part in that human race thing." (I kid, of course.) Television isn't neccessarily a good thing, not something everyone HAS to do, but it's not necessarily a bad thing either, on it's own. Television is not the devil, although it is true that it contains more than enough terrible, inane, lazy programming. But there are also wonderful images, and characters, and bits of dialogue, that combination of music and image and direction that combine into transcendence (occasionally) that would inspire even the most high-minded. I'm not advocating game shows, but watching a few carefully chosen television shows is not going to pollute you.
I wish I could have attended this Comic Con. Why, you ask? I have been to a few smaller conventions, and it is quite interesting in terms of the characters you might run into, the spectacle, the single-minded devotion of people to their chosen - comic book, genre film, author, whatever. Sure, there's a carnival-like weirdness to it, but on the whole, it's a joy-laden celebration of the odd and the imaginative, and how can you not have respect for that? I think of the happiness I felt as a kid when I read Madeleine L'Engle's Swiftly Tilting Planet, or Anne McCaffery's Dragonsinger - the longed-for empowerment, the beauty of the alternate realities in which young women in difficult and trying situations could (through hard work and perseverance and creativity and love) and did make a difference. There was hope in these books, even a spiritual aspect which most contemporary literature does not touch. The best Science fiction and fantasy really does offer a lyric frame in which to view our worlds.
In short, popular culture allows for a dialogue across language, class, race and gender. Isn't that something to be embraced?
Labels: Defense of popular culture, I
Friday, July 27, 2007
The Summer 2007 issue of Endicott Studio's Journal of Mythic Arts is up, and this one is geared for the YA crowd; there are poems from "Stardust" author Neil Gaiman and fiction from my Bookslut reading partner, Catherynne M. Valente, and two good essays, one on the "Orphaned Hero" in Harry Potter etc and the other on Why Disney's The Little Mermaid May Not Be As Feminist as You Think - I mean, if you thought it was, which I never really did, but I did like the singing lobster. And there may be two poems from Becoming the Villainess
in there as well...Labels: Catherynne M. Valente, Journal of Mythic Arts, Neil Gaiman
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
All right, I have a question for you to perk up our summer writing doldrums:
Which ten books are the books that have inspired the most writing from you? The books you read that you couldn't wait to put down so you could write afterwards? These aren't neccessarily your "favorite" books, but the books that have helped you generate the most new work. If you are a poet, they do not have to all be poetry, they can be fiction, non-fiction, etc.
Here are my top ten "inspiration-generating" books so far:
-Louise Gluck's Meadowlands
-Hayao Kawai's The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan
-Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen
-The Armless Maiden: And Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors, Edited by Terri Windling
-Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run with the Wolves
-Humphries' translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses
-Margaret Atwood's Selected Poems II
-Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde
-I'm going to cheat and allow film in this list: Hayao Miyazaki's entire oevre
-HD's Collected Poems
-My mother's copy of XJ Kennedy's Introduction to Poetry, circa1969, including all her notes
I'd love to see your lists!
Labels: Top ten books that inspire/help you generate your work
Monday, July 23, 2007
It is Monday, though I feel quite cheerful because I have a new computer that works (thank goodness, finally) and I wrote a letter to the editor at the Atlantic and I've never written a letter to the editor before but I thought it was for a good cause (to cheer Kelli and Pacific U) and this afternoon I am going to a very smart rheumatologist who may at last tell me why I've had a fever for two months and have albumin-anemia and high C-Reactive Protein. This I believe has been the cause of my fatigue and "down" moods lately - I was telling a friend that I feel my "down"-ness is in my body, not my head, that's exactly it. I actually feel okay with my life, especially now that: a. I am wondering where to rent next (always an adventure when you're picking a new town, even a new town in driving distance) and b. where/if/how I should work (teaching? publishing? more freelancing?) and c: I feel happy about the third manuscript I'm working on, and how I'm writing a lot of poems about sleeping women. It's just that I have so little energy - like having lead weights on all the time. I always feel weird talking about my physical stuff here but it's hard to explain my life without also explaining that stuff, if you know what I mean. So, it's part of my life - like writing, like my husband and cat, like where I live - it's part of the life environment - when you are sick, it affects everything else.
But enough about me! Here's a neat link to an interview with one of my favoritest faculty at Pacific, Dorianne Laux, at the Smoking Poet!
And, apparently, a party run by the Poetry Foundation was shut down by police in Chicago this weekend. Look, poets are already paranoid enough that "the man" is out to get them - you don't need to encourage that kind of thinking, fellas! Wish I could have been there to see it.
Labels: Dorianne Laux, illness and life, Policing poets
Friday, July 20, 2007
Aha! Solved the mystery of my grumpy computer...the hard drive died today and the computer would no longer boot up. I freaked out because I thought the whole of My Documents was lost- along with the 40 page third manuscript I've been working on but had no hard copies of - until I remembered I'd backed up two weeks ago. Then I stopped hyperventilating. I took it to a computer repair wizard (or as I call it, the PC Whisperer) and he said, yes, the hard drive is dying, lifted it to his ear and shook it, and got it to boot up one last time so I could copy the files over to a new laptop (goodbye, majority of grant money!) On the plus side, the new laptop is pink and superspeedy. If anyone wants a nice, three-year-old laptop with a dead hard drive, give me a whistle! Selling for cheap....
PS The PC Whisperer says the most common thing for 2-3 year old laptops to go is the hard drive. So remember your backups, all ye who bought laptops in 2004!
On the plus side, my father and brother made it through their respective eye surgeries swimmingly. Hoorah!
And, may tomorrow may be a less stressful day. Health and happiness to all!
PS May go see Hairspray tonight. Need an escape from reality for a bit...
Labels: hard drives from hell, narrowly averted nervous breakdowns
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Had the chance to see Peter Pereira and Nancy Pagh (author of "No Sweeter Fat" from Autumn House) read tonight in Redmond, and both did a terrific job. Peter read my favorite poem from his new book (Twenty Years After His Passing, My Father Appears to Us in Chicago, at Bobby Chinn's Crab & Oyster House, in the Guise of Our Waiter, Ramon) Also had a fun poet-friend dinner beforehand, which was nice. I'm really lucky to know such supportive, wonderful writers.
I've been a bit grumpy lately, but hope it is just a funky-funk I will snap out of. I apologize to all who interact with me and who read this blog. I'm sure cheerleader levels of pep will return soon.
On the plus side, Heroes and Masi Oka nominated for Emmys!
Update: I know one of the contributing factors to the grumpiness is my three-year-old laptop computer, which has started giving me memory error and registry corruption problems, and now runs so slow I can barely open e-mail, much less a Word file, in 20 minutes. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi - (I mean, shiny new Sony laptop on sale now) you're my only hope!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
To borrow from Ms. Loudon, My Glamorous Life as a Poet:
Well, after being 24 hours without power, we had to throw out the entire contents of fridge and freezer (except for what we saved via ice-chest and cooler.) That was expensive. Then go shopping to replenish: cheese, milk, frozen pizza/veggies and yogurt, salad dressings and sorbet (essential in heat) and other underpinnings of meals. Then, loads of undone laundrey. Then, host of unreturned phone messages and e-mails. Two members of my family, my dad and my older brother, are getting eye surgeries this week because of rare odd problems, so waiting for news of both. Managed to finally get two submissions out yesterday night (both online) and write and revise one poem. Got back to someone who was waiting on feedback for their poems. And had to attend to lawyer from x company that wants me to sign an affadavit that I am not the inventor of Y techology that I wrote about lo many years ago when I was a tech geek. Fun!
In between these little life crises, I managed to read the new book Japanamerica by one of the editors of A Public Space, a lit mag I love, which was a fairly shallow evaluation of popular culture in Japan and its relevance in America. Not bad, just not as in-depth as I would have liked, especially as it mentioned certain artists (Murakami the "Superflat" pop artist, and Murakami the novelist, and anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki) but didn't really shed new insight into them for me. Maybe because I've already read a lot of books and magazine articles on these subjects.
Still contemplating move to an (Even smaller and further out than Bothell) small town at the end of my lease. Seems like the only way to live on my freelancer budget (even with husband G's income) is to get the heck out of the Seattle area, where rents and property values just keep climbing. Poetry just isn't that lucrative, and if I want to stay a poet, and not, say, a writer of vampire chick lit or corporate handbooks, it seems important to figure out a way to live on less.
Labels: glamorous life, Japanese popularculture, power outage rebound
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Verse Daily, Three Cheers for Kelli, Power Outages and the top five low-res MFA programs
Okay, Verse Daily has my poem "The Husband Tries to Write to the Disappearing Wife" up today! (And by today, I mean Friday...please ignore the blogger timestamp.)
It's from Redactions. Thanks guys! I'm honored. This is one of the few persona poems where I tried to write in a male voice, so it was a little risky for me. I hope you like it!
Immediately pick up the Summer Fiction issue of The Atlantic, which has a terrific poem by Kelli that won their student poetry contest! Hooray!
In this same issue, the Atlantic has an article that rates various graduate writing programs. I'd like to say my recent Alma Mater, Pacific University, made it onto the Top 5 Low-Res MFA Programs. Pretty good for a West-Coast newcomer to the scene, right?
It seems my power only goes out when the temps are below 30 or above 90. In that tradition, I've been hiding in an air-conditioned hotel room. Has this been a crazy week or what?
Labels: Power Outages, Three Cheers for Kelli, top 5 low-res MFA programs, Verse Daily
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Villainess Goes to...ComicCon?
Imagine my surprise when someone pointed this out to me in the ComicCon 2007 schedule:
Saturday 1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #11: High Art and Low—Richard Becker (CSU Northridge) discusses the nature of the narrator and authorial self-insertions in comics, like those of Lee and Kirby, Gerber, and Morrison, and the schism between schools of storytelling in which the writer is very visible and another in which the writer seeks to be completely invisible. John A. Walsh (Indiana University) examines Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol stories and their punctuation by appearances of and allusions to similarly fracture, damaged, and outcast artists and works and asks whether the members of the Doom Patrol are artists or heroes and if there’s a difference. Jason Mott (UNC-Wilmington) uncovers the history of comic book superheroes and traces their evolution from serving purely as devices of metaphor for poets to becoming the subject of extended development and progression by award-winning poets such as Brian Dietrich in Krypton Nights and Jeannine Hall in Becoming the Villainess. Room 30AB
Very close to this listing: the Q&A with the Heroes cast and crew. Hee! Yes, I'm missing a last name, but it makes me more mysterious...
Wish I was going to be in San Diego in two weeks!
PS It's 100 degrees today. So I'm going to see Harry Potter!
Labels: Becoming the Villainess, ComicCon
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Verse Daily, Pubs, Bill Gates Sightings...
I just found out one of my poems will be up on Verse Daily this upcoming week, I think on Thursday. (No, I have been corrected - it will be up Friday - also my husband G's birthday!) Check it out! Yay!
Received the beautiful little pocket of Foursquare on Saturday, with my poem "Anime Girls Consider the Resurrected." I loved the other poems in it, which means poet-editor Jessica Smith and I must have similarly excellent taste. The only question is - how do I find out which poet wrote which poem? I really liked the prose-poem piece. And what other poetry journal comes in its own convenient and attractive fabric carrying pouch? If only it came with an origami swan...(See last post for joke reference.)
My interview with prolific interviewer-extrordinaire Kate Greenstreet is up at Eclectica Magazine. Also has poems by Michaela (not my illustrater, the poet/blogger Michaela) and other interesting stuff.
Raven Chronicles final print issue, titled "Whimsies" (containing, appropriately enough, one of Jeffery Bahr's poems) is out at bookstores now - the last, and if I may be bold, best-poetry-edited issue Raven Chronicles ever! (Full disclosure: I was the guest poetry editor of this issue - although most of the editing was done three years ago. A lot of lag time in the publication. ) Seriously, this comedy-filled issue is a lot of fun. It contains poems by Kelli Agodon, Peter Pereira, my fellow Crab Creek editor Natasha Moni, and many other superduperpoets.
Friday I was chilling out in husband-G's office lobby at Microsoft, had my feet up on the table, playing a little cell-phone video game, when Bill Gates walked within two feet of me. (PS He is very tall. And still very, very geeky.) No security or nothin'. I should totally have hit him up for poetry funds. Five minutes later, as the husband and I strolled across the parking lot, a supervillainy helicopter shoots up over our heads, with aforementioned-almost-richest-man-in-the-world aboard. Geesh, will this billionaire just leave me alone? Quit stalking me already! I get it!
PS This is indeed the best time to visit the Northwest. Today was sunny, seventies, the streams's water lilies hid baby ducks and the grass baby rabbits, the wind over the water, the youth spoke politely to me in my inquiry after the rabbits, "Yes ma'am, lots of baby rabbits this time of year," roses and honeysuckle were blooming, and all was well in the world. Yup, nothing wrong with Seattle in the rain, but Seattle in the sun is nearly unbearably beautiful. I spent four hours outside and hated to go in.
PSS The husband and I celebrate our thirteenth wedding anniversary tomorrow on the 9th. Wish us luck on the next 13!
Labels: anniversary, Bill Gates, Foursquare, Interviews, Poem on Verse Daily
Thursday, July 05, 2007
While passing time at the gigantic Bellevue library this afternoon, I ran across the best (and most amusing) thing I've read in Poetry (this was the July/August issue) in some time:
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0707/comment_179843.html
This essay ostensibly and comically describes the difference between fiction writers and poets from the perspective of a somewhat flibberty-gibbetish fiction writer in love with a poet; fiction writers are "too busy writing to read" while poets are "always reading," the fiction writer writes 13 pages while the poet leans her head against the window waiting for the poem to hit, etc.
My favorite part was the tongue in cheek part about payment, near the ending:
"But it's been a good week for us. I sold my new novel, after a bidding war, for $11 million, and my Poet had a poem taken by a well-known literary journal, which gave payment in the form of an origami swan made out of her recycled submission. "
And the part where the poet throws books by beautiful-young-prizewinning-theorist-poets she's reviewing across the room. Not that I would know anything about that. No sirree.
I also checked C. Dale Young's second book out of the library, along with Natasha Tretheway's Belloq's Ophelia, which I had skimmed but hadn't really read - it's a series of poems about a prostitute in New Orleans who was photographed early last century; they're mostly persona poems, truly well done. It's an easy book to read in one sitting, moving and graceful.
I also sent a query in to Poets & Writers Magazine with an article idea. I figure, maybe I should try to write for magazines which have something to do with what I do all day. You know, crazy ideas like that. And an MS into BOA. Wish me luck...
Labels: Belloq's Ophelia, Poets and Writers, The difference between fiction writers and poets
Monday, July 02, 2007
Well, I'm back from Portland only slightly worse for wear (I'm sure 72 hours of sleep will fix that right up) and since I received official written notification, I'm pretty sure I can share my good news I've been blathering on about:
My first ever grant! Washington State Artist Trust has awarded me a GAP (grant for artists) grant for my Japanese book project, titled something like "The Woman Disappears" or "She Returns to the Floating World," depending on my mood. (Please feel free to opine on title in the comments.) Thanks so much for your comments and encouragement last week :) I especially liked the guess that I had the Guggenheim, which I thought was quite optimistic and sweet! Maybe someday...
For now, I'm very excited about this and take it as a sign I should not run off and become a sculptor or something. I have oft described myself as someone who doesn't win grants, so now I have to come up with some other descriptor. I also know that my fellow Steel Toe Books author Martha Silano, and local writer-friends Susan Rich and Ronda Broatch, were awarded grants as well. Congrats girls! The total number of writers awarded grants was about half the number of visual artists, and several less than the number of theater-related artists. Maybe we writers should start submitting slide shows with our grant applications.
The graduation party at Pacific was a lot of fun (though technically I graduated in January, we didn't have a party then, so...) and got to visit with all my former advisors who were all sweet and enthusiastic. One of the faculty whom I adore, Sandra Alcosser, with whom I never got to work officially, actually gave me notes on my second book MS, and really encouraged me, giving me specific feedback and telling me to hit the contests hard. The difference between this particular low-res program and my residential MA at U of Cincinnati is pretty shocking in terms of - at UC you were lucky to get any outside-of-class one-on-one time with any of the workshop leaders, whom you saw once a week for workshop - at this MFA program I'm pretty sure all the faculty keep better track of me than my grandmother (some of them knew about my grant before I did!) and they are all just so supportive and generous with their time. Genuinely interested in how the students are doing, in their work. Maybe it's just Pacific, and I know I had a great bunch of unique advisors, but sheesh! I'm thinking of adopting them as my extended family. I strongly recommend low-res programs to anyone who wants one-on-one time with great writers. If you want a lot of peer review, you're better off at a residential program, though.
I also loved visiting with the younger students, especially this new bunch of girls who are so bright and interested in feminism etc. They're a pretty impressive group, and when I hang around them I think "it wouldn't be so bad teaching college." Of course I'm always giving them advice like "learn technical writing/journalism/advertising writing so you can support yourself and not end up relying on your husband or boyfriend or starving" which I'm pretty sure is exactly what my mom said to me in my early twenties and why I worked ten years in corporate America before I focused on writing poetry. It's my cynical nature, perhaps, but I believe artistic-type writers should also have a "trade" so they can feed themselves and have health insurance while they're waiting for their big breaks, especially the single girls who might otherwise be tempted by some jerky rich guy. Or if they're poets, because even our big breaks are somewhat less than inspiring financially than the fiction or memoirist's big breaks. What do you guys think? Is that a good or bad thing to tell a young creative writer? Am I a terrible influence on young minds?
Okay, I'm going to unpack and breathe, but, oh, I am feeling happy and grateful and ready to face the rejection slips again!
Labels: GAP grants, grateful, Post-MFA afterglow, starving artists and tech writers
Special thanks to Yumiko Kayukawa
for the use of Zen Cracker.
