Alexis Vergalla writes and lives in Seattle, WA. Her first chapbook, Letters Through Glass, was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press and her second chapbook, Experiments in Light and Ether, will be appearing on Dancing Girl Press in the summer of 2010. She currently helps out with Poetry Northwest and volunteers at the Richard Hugo House.
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For Bodie I am taking the turn of the century, from 1880ish to 1915. I really love science at that point, mostly centered on ether and the abandonment of that theory (which I know way too much about by now). For this project, though, I’m veering more into the medical field, taking the persona of a doctor entering town right as it crests and begins its demise.
I’ve never been to Bodie, and I’ve never really been to a ghost town. A few dilapidated coal towns in Pennsylvania, but never an out and out ghost town; the closest I’ve been is Laramie, WY. As I don’t really know ghost towns, but I do know the East, I’m going to have the doctor equally transported as I found myself while living in California for two years. I look forward to learning all about setting bones, removing bullets and mine accidents.
Bodie or Bust 