Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Flare, Cororna - A review by Toni


About Flare, Corona:

Against a constellation of solar weather events and evolving pandemic, Jeannine Hall Gailey’sFlare, Corona paints a self-portrait of the layered ways that we prevail and persevere through illness and natural disaster.

Gailey deftly juxtaposes odd solar and weather events with the medical disasters occurring inside her own brain and body— we follow her through a false-alarm terminal cancer diagnosis, a real diagnosis of MS, and finally the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The solar flare and corona of an eclipse becomes the neural lesions in her own personal “flare,” which she probes with both honesty and humor. While the collection features harbingers of calamity, visitations of wolves, blood moons, apocalypses, and plagues, at the center of it all are the poet’s attempts to navigate a fraught medical system, dealing with a series of challenging medical revelations, some of which are mirages and others that are all too real. 

In Flare, Corona, Jeannine Hall Gailey is incandescent and tender-hearted, gracefully insistent on teaching us all of the ways that we can live, all of the ways in which we can refuse to do anything but to brilliantly and stubbornly survive.



My Review can not even compare to the above "about Flare, Corona."   I strongly agree with that synopsis. 

I read about 2-3  of the poems/works each day.   Each one to me is like a strong heavy drink.  Also I don't always know exactly what I am reading or the true meaning, but I feel it very strong.    After reading more and more it began to sink into the timing and the meaning... I felt powerful sad, and strong.  I love the deep raw stuff. 

I feel it in my brain, it feels like stream of consciousness poetry and I feel my brain grip it and go places with it.   I cry and I wonder as I read.  Connective writing to a very confusing time for all, and yet so personal to the author.  

I recommend this collection.  It's a grand slam on emotion. 




Join the rest of the tour and see what everyone has to say. 


Blog Tour Schedule:


May 18: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)
May 23: Author Anthony Avina blog (review)
May 25: Author Anthony Avina blog (guest post)
May 30: The Book Lover's Boudoir (review)
June 6: The bookworm (review)
June 13: The Soapy Violinist (review)
June 15: Celtic Lady's Reviews (guest post)
June 20: True Book Addict (review)


About the Poet:


Jeannine Hall Gailey is a writer with MS who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She is the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist's Daughter, Field Guide to the End of the World, the winner of the Moon City Press Book Award and the SFPA's Elgin Award, and upcoming in 2023, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. She also wrote a non-fiction book called PR for Poets to help poets trying to promote their books. Her poems have been featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac and on Verse Daily; two were included in 2007's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She was awarded a 2007 and 2011 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for Poetry and a 2007 Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Ploughshares.



 

Monday, May 8, 2023

The rain and storms and fallen trees…

It gave backyard delights to plants thought to be dead from drought.   It’s a lesson…. It’s hope… we can live again after devastation.





 

Saturday, May 6, 2023

BellaRose


 She is such a good dog. 🌻

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

A special little photo shoot

 



 Beautiful Valentino. I never had this breed in my list unlike all the rest of the world!  :) 

After having this grand soul in my life, I know why they are loved and adored.  Obedient and protective, loyal and beautiful.

Valentino is my heart❤️

Sunday, April 30, 2023

All the things

 Planting…hopefully…

Living breathing …hopefully.


Denial is pretty thick…but it is navigated ok.

Reality is a concept.


Being busy is best.

Being sad is ok.


Hope is just another word for waiting anxiously for nothing.

Hope is the future, now is the pain.


Peace is welcome…yet a deceiving thief of time.

It’s lies and procrastinates 


Body decay and discomfort is present, it seems to mock.


Self-care is in the air.  Nothing cost too much and every bit matters.


Thoughts are a lie

Thoughts are manipulated.


The world is mostly good.


Toni Colleen