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She Returns to the Floating World
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2011)She Returns to the Floating World is a book about transformation that examines two recurring motifs in Japanese folk tales and popular culture: "the woman who disappears" and the "older sister/savior." Many of the poems are persona poems spoken by characters from anim and manga, mythology, and fairy tales, like the story of the kitsune, or fox-woman, whose relationships are followed throughout the book. Gailey's abiding interest in female heroes and tales of transformation, love, and loss bristles to life with a cast of characters including wives who become foxes, sisters who become birds, and robots with souls.
132 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2011
2 people are currently reading
341 people want to read
About the author
Jeannine Hall Gailey
21 books145 followersJeannine Hall Gailey is a poet with Multiple Sclerosis who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She is the author of six books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006,) She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011,) Unexplained Fevers (New Binary Press, 2013) The Robot Scientist's Daughter (Mayapple Press, 2015), the winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA's Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World, and the upcoming from BOA Editions, Flare, Corona. She's also written a guide to marketing for poets, PR for Poets. Her poems were featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac and Verse Daily, and included in 2007's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Her work has appeared in journals like The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The American Poetry Review, and Poetry. She has an MA in English from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Pacific University.
Jeannine also writes book reviews which have appeared in The Rumpus, American Book Review, Calyx, The Pedestal Magazine, and The Cincinnati Review.
She has written technical articles and published a book on early web services technology with Microsoft Press in 2004.
Jeannine also writes book reviews which have appeared in The Rumpus, American Book Review, Calyx, The Pedestal Magazine, and The Cincinnati Review.
She has written technical articles and published a book on early web services technology with Microsoft Press in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 4, 2011
This is a lengthy collection, clocking in at 129 pages. It is full of haibun with a few haiku, along with narrative poems and lyric musings. There are five sections, and each section begins with an epigraph that helps an American audience bridge the gap with Japanese themes. Within each section, the blending of pop culture, fairy tales, and modern, global concerns is fantastic. There is nothing cheesy about it; every speaker is authentic, every line rings true.
Of all the Japanese fairy tales, the fox-wife is perhaps the most important to the book, although the white crane-woman is prominent as well. As the hyphen implies, the fox-wife is a half-creature, hiding her tale while in human form, always separate in a permanent way from the man she loves. There are several fox-wife poems in the book, usually in the form of haibun. One of my favorites is "The Fox-Wife Describes Their Courtship." In the prose section, we get these lines:
When we're alone, I forget my other life sometimes, forget my sharp teeth and tail. I become the thing beneath his hands, softer.
and later
He always sought to put things back together. I tear things apart. The instruments of bone and blood are the same; the intents are different.
and the final haiku:
I know before he does
how he will leave me,
a little temple of spine and fur.
The separate-but-together (a la Tim O'Brien in "The Things They Carried) theme carries through the entire book, whether the speaker is a fairy tale being or a modern woman. Here Jeannine gets at the brokenness of our world and does so with deftness and beauty.
Another way into this theme is through the use of "code." In the poems this might be computer code for gaming or technological advances, it might be the scientific code responsible for the atomic bomb, or it might be the genetic code damaged now by all we've unleashed on the world in our quest for progress. In "Aberrant Code II," the speaker states, "...but I was already / blessed with DNA so sampled, broken / that no one would could relay its message." At the end of "Aberrant Code V," the speaker tells us, "One story's about nuclear waste and the other a trick of genetics. / Either way the ground here is sown with monsters, / some of them weeping, some of them eating the furniture."
That idea of the broken DNA translates in several poems into infertility issues, which culminate in a poem toward the end of the book, "Why We Cannot Have Children," which is heartbreaking and real. It is a list poem. Here is just a sample:
Because I am a witch, a demon.
Because one might be born with a fox's tail, or a white bird's feathers.
Because our children would all become monsters.
Because I would rather not pass on the problems coded within me.
Finally, I have to remark on one of the last poems in the book, "Autobiography I." Here, the poem begins:
No, last time you read me
wrong. I'm not the main character,
I'm the photographer, the one
with her feet in the river.
I'm the frame of reference,
not the delicate willow branch,
not fragile and crumpled as a peony.
Of all the Japanese fairy tales, the fox-wife is perhaps the most important to the book, although the white crane-woman is prominent as well. As the hyphen implies, the fox-wife is a half-creature, hiding her tale while in human form, always separate in a permanent way from the man she loves. There are several fox-wife poems in the book, usually in the form of haibun. One of my favorites is "The Fox-Wife Describes Their Courtship." In the prose section, we get these lines:
When we're alone, I forget my other life sometimes, forget my sharp teeth and tail. I become the thing beneath his hands, softer.
and later
He always sought to put things back together. I tear things apart. The instruments of bone and blood are the same; the intents are different.
and the final haiku:
I know before he does
how he will leave me,
a little temple of spine and fur.
The separate-but-together (a la Tim O'Brien in "The Things They Carried) theme carries through the entire book, whether the speaker is a fairy tale being or a modern woman. Here Jeannine gets at the brokenness of our world and does so with deftness and beauty.
Another way into this theme is through the use of "code." In the poems this might be computer code for gaming or technological advances, it might be the scientific code responsible for the atomic bomb, or it might be the genetic code damaged now by all we've unleashed on the world in our quest for progress. In "Aberrant Code II," the speaker states, "...but I was already / blessed with DNA so sampled, broken / that no one would could relay its message." At the end of "Aberrant Code V," the speaker tells us, "One story's about nuclear waste and the other a trick of genetics. / Either way the ground here is sown with monsters, / some of them weeping, some of them eating the furniture."
That idea of the broken DNA translates in several poems into infertility issues, which culminate in a poem toward the end of the book, "Why We Cannot Have Children," which is heartbreaking and real. It is a list poem. Here is just a sample:
Because I am a witch, a demon.
Because one might be born with a fox's tail, or a white bird's feathers.
Because our children would all become monsters.
Because I would rather not pass on the problems coded within me.
Finally, I have to remark on one of the last poems in the book, "Autobiography I." Here, the poem begins:
No, last time you read me
wrong. I'm not the main character,
I'm the photographer, the one
with her feet in the river.
I'm the frame of reference,
not the delicate willow branch,
not fragile and crumpled as a peony.
July 3, 2011
I have been a fan of Jeannine Hall Gailey's work since chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes and her first collection, Becoming the Villainess as Jeannine writes about subjects other poets are not exploring in their work. Her work is smart, surprising, and always with a feminist edge. This new collection continues with these admirable traits but moves into new territory with a focus on Japanese folktales. What I love about this new collection is how it continually stretches past themes and subjects, constantly mixing pop-culture with myth with relationships with the body with real life and its concerns taking place around us. We find ourselves reading about anime girls in space, chaos theory, dogwood trees, horoscopes, doctor's offices, anxiety, health, brothers and the list goes, but with all of it connecting!
Several of my favorite poems are in this collection: "After Ten Years Together, We Sneak Off to Make Out in Someone's Closet," "The Taste of Rust in August," "Waiting in the OB/Gyn's Office for the Results of a Biopsy," "In Phoenix, Heat Makes Us Chase Egrets," and the wonderful poem, "Advice Given to Me Before My Wedding," where Gailey writes:
He is more beautiful but you,
you have more power. Which is to say,
you are just like your brother. Lift your eyes
and people do what you say. Who knows why.
But there are so many new poems I came across in this 126 page collection. "White Bird Sister" that sings "Carry On, Carry On" or a series of "Code" poems that have such lovely lines as "Code for 'you too can become heroes,' for ambition, greatness" and "Code that spells out messages of love/only you understand.
She Returns to the Floating World is an amazing, satisfying, surprisingly collection that takes us into the world of imagination yet with dose of real life. Gailey's mind and work offers an intrigue I don't always receive from other poets, the poems are crafted to surprise, to entertain, and interpret the world around us through glasses that do not draw borders between life and story, myth and relationships. They are fascinating and inspiring to me as both a reader and writer myself. I highly recommend this book!
Several of my favorite poems are in this collection: "After Ten Years Together, We Sneak Off to Make Out in Someone's Closet," "The Taste of Rust in August," "Waiting in the OB/Gyn's Office for the Results of a Biopsy," "In Phoenix, Heat Makes Us Chase Egrets," and the wonderful poem, "Advice Given to Me Before My Wedding," where Gailey writes:
He is more beautiful but you,
you have more power. Which is to say,
you are just like your brother. Lift your eyes
and people do what you say. Who knows why.
But there are so many new poems I came across in this 126 page collection. "White Bird Sister" that sings "Carry On, Carry On" or a series of "Code" poems that have such lovely lines as "Code for 'you too can become heroes,' for ambition, greatness" and "Code that spells out messages of love/only you understand.
She Returns to the Floating World is an amazing, satisfying, surprisingly collection that takes us into the world of imagination yet with dose of real life. Gailey's mind and work offers an intrigue I don't always receive from other poets, the poems are crafted to surprise, to entertain, and interpret the world around us through glasses that do not draw borders between life and story, myth and relationships. They are fascinating and inspiring to me as both a reader and writer myself. I highly recommend this book!
March 12, 2015
review to come
May 5, 2021
Beautiful and dreamlike, moving seamlessly from fable and fairy tale to hospital waiting room. I reread it often.
April 8, 2012
With her collection She Returns to the Floating World, Jeannine Hall Gailey has created a masterpiece. I do not say this lightly. Gailey’s second book is alive with Japanese fairy tales, references to the films of Miyazaki, and anime girls. The poet is able to thread these stories together with the fox-wife, a changeling who introduces the other changelings while holding the narrative together by reappearing. However, these aren’t any changelings, as the story of each poem resonates with the idea of woman as other. In these poems, women are never what they appear to be:
“I look down and see my paw on his hand. He sees the half-moons of nails, the pink skin.”
(“The Fox-Wife Describes Their Courtship”)
Thus begins what I’d like to praise as an important book for women writers and readers. These female changelings are outcasts from the outset.
Read the rest of the review at Barn Owl Review: http://www.barnowlreview.com/reviews/...
“I look down and see my paw on his hand. He sees the half-moons of nails, the pink skin.”
(“The Fox-Wife Describes Their Courtship”)
Thus begins what I’d like to praise as an important book for women writers and readers. These female changelings are outcasts from the outset.
Read the rest of the review at Barn Owl Review: http://www.barnowlreview.com/reviews/...
October 13, 2011
While Gailey's first book, Becoming the Villainess, was more in line with my own pop culture interests (comic books, heroines of video games, vampire slayers), I still enjoyed these poems centered around Japanese mythology and folk tales. The same strong feminist themes are in play here, as well as gorgeous lyricism.
February 9, 2012
An outstanding collection of poems, filled with characters from Japanese folk tales, anime, and pop culture. Family and love relationships entwine with Japanese images and stories, giving the poems depth and close connections with each other. Every piece here is worth a second read, particularly when considered with the arc of the collection.
April 30, 2012
One of my favorite books of poetry this year! Read my full review in the new issue of Southern Humanities Review, and an interview with Jeannine Hall Gailey at my blog, Writing with Celia.
December 22, 2011
Fantastic use of folk lore to comment on the way we are with each other and with our environment with much compassion and tact.
October 25, 2020
Fans of anime and Japanese folklore and culture (including Totoro!) will especially appreciate this book of lovely poems.
March 31, 2022
I enjoyed the heavy draw on Japanese folklore here, but the poems were a little narrative for me.
November 14, 2012
I didn't like this collection nearly as much as Becoming the Villainess. I liked individual poems, and the imagery of broken DNA/programming was interesting. But as a collection it felt far too repatative. I like the idea of poems based on fairytales, but I think there needed to be more diversity among the stories.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews