Becoming the Villainess (Paperback)

Alternately funny, violent, wicked, and sad, this first collection of poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey presents mythic archetypes in a surprisingly new light against the backdrop of pop culture, Ovid, Grimm's fairy tales, and the struggles of contemporary women.

"Gailey writes with a voice full of wit and charm that keeps the reader somewhat off balance. She serves a dish of fairy tales and myths, part vixen and part Carol Burnett. Hers is an edginess that makes new those tales with which we are familiar. An excellent read that will leave you wanting more." —Colleen J. McElroy, award-winning poet and editor of The Seattle Review

"These full-bodied persona poems give dimension to the powerful (and powerless) female heroes of myth and comic books with strong voices that struggle against stereotype and silence. Make room for this new take on the oldest story in the book." —Dorianne Laux, award-winning poet and co-author of The Poet's Companion

"In this splendidly entertaining debut, Jeannine Hall Gailey offers us a world both familiar and magical—filled with fairytale and mythology characters that are our own bedfellows—we wake up with Philomel and argue with Ophelia while half-listening to a Snow Queen, amidst Spy Girls, Amazons and Mongolian Cows. The wild and seductive energy in this collection never lets one put the book down. (In fact, any one who opens the collection in the bookstore and reads such poems as The Conversation and Job Requirements: A Supervillain’s Advice will want to buy the book!) For her delivery is heart-breaking and refreshing, so the poems seduce us with the sadness, glory and entertainment of our very own days. Propelled by Jeannine Hall Gailey’s alert, sensuous, and musical gifts, the mythology becomes all our own." —Ilya Kaminsky, author of the award-winning Dancing in Odessa

Jeannine Hall Gailey’s poetry will unleash anyone’s inner "Bad Girl." Alternately funny, violent, wicked, and sad, Gailey presents mythic archetypes in a surprising new light against a backdrop of pop culture, Ovid, Grimm’s fairy tales, and the struggles of contemporary women, in surprisingly refreshing poems like "When Red Becomes the Wolf" and the title poem, "Becoming the Villainess." A strong follow-up to her chapbook Female Comic Book Superheroes (Pudding House Press 2005), in Becoming the Villainess "Gailey writes with a voice full of wit and charm that keeps the reader somewhat off balance," declares Colleen McElroy, winner of the American Book Award, professor at the University of Washington, and editor of The Seattle Review. "She serves a dish of fairy tales and myths, part vixen and part Carol Burnett. Hers is an edginess that makes new those tales with which we are familiar." Steel Toe Books selected Becoming the Villainess as its first solicited manuscript.

We at Steel Toe Books concur with Ilya Kaminsky, winner of the prestigious Whiting Writer's Award and the Dorset Prize, when he states that "in this splendidly entertaining debut, Jeannine Hall Gailey offers us a world both familiar and magical.... The wild and seductive energy in this collection never lets one put the book down... Her delivery is heart-breaking and refreshing, so the poems seduce us with the sadness, glory and entertainment of our very own days. Propelled by Jeannine Hall Gailey’s alert, sensuous and musical gifts, the mythology becomes our own."

Gailey, who earned an MA in English at the University of Cincinnati and is pursuing her MFA at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, is a master at weaving her pop-culture poems, such as "Spy Girls" and "Amazon Women on the Moon," with classical myth and fairy tales, in poems like "Cinderella at the Car Dealership" and "Playing Softball With Persephone," that in the words of Dorianne Laux "give dimension to the powerful (and powerless) female heroes of myth and comic books that struggle against the stereotype and silence." Here’s an excerpt from Gailey’s Pushcart Prize-nominated poem "Wonder Woman Dreams of the Amazon": My daily transformation
from prim kitten-bowed suit to bustier

Gailey’s poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Columbia Poetry Review, Verse Daily, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, and 32 Poems, among others. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband.

• Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry
• Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > Feminist Theory