Working Collar Writer

SpinningJannie — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:40:36 -0700

Throughout my life, I have written about how people support themselves. As a young woman, I set out to travel and work in every kind of job and institution in order to understand what work is. I experienced many types of work: I was an office clerk, a tally girl in a Central California fruit-packing house, a factory worker, a jail librarian, an aide in a mental hospital, a Santa's elf, a ...

Overlooked, Bothered and Bitched-Out

SpinningJannie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:00:41 -0700

As part of my www.examiner.column on local (SF Bay Area) poets and poetry, I have had the good fortune to interview fascinating people who are overlooked by not only our mainstream media (poetry has never been on their radar) but also, and unfortunately so, by our local alternative press and poetry magazines. How many times have I seen the photos of better-known poets on the front-page of even ...

Poem a Day

SpinningJannie — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:56:24 -0700

I joined Molly Fisk's Facebook challenge group to write a poem every day for the month of June. Two years ago I set off on January 1 with the same intention, but to write a poem every day for the whole year. In both cases, I failed. There's something important to priming the pump. I have had to let go of my perfectionism to write a new poem every day. Some of the exercises have worked out. Most ...

Writing for Free (or nearly so)

SpinningJannie — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:18:49 -0700

In February I took a post as the San Francisco Poetry Examiner at www.examiner.com. The site is always looking for writers with special interests or communities that they are involved in, so that they may report on activities and events, etc. It's hardly a paying gig, but it has allowed me to interview some great poets and the shakers and movers of our local poetry scene, many who epitomize the ...

Cheating on Moby-Dick

SpinningJannie — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:11:26 -0700

I've had bad luck with reading groups. The one I recently stopped attending had switched the format to having one member choose the month's title that everyone would be asked to read. Since several of the recently selected tomes were not, in my opinion, even worthy of discussing, I decided my reading time was too precious to sacrifice to some semblance of the English literature classroom I dream ...

(Can't) Beat a Retreat!

SpinningJannie — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:16:47 -0700

Only two days, but without computer, telephone, radio or t.v. Just a good companion who respects solitude and likes good food. We went to the Quaker Retreat Center in Ben Lomond, very inexpensive, and set in a forest of redwood, Douglas fir, madrone, and a variety of oak. A deer came within a few feet of me, obviously undaunted by human presence (must be the Quaker non-violent gestalt of the ...