January 7: Poetry Workshop, Richard Blanco, "One Dog"

I led a poetry workshop tonight.  All of the prompts were based on poems written for Presidential Inaugurations.  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco.  All of the poems full of light and some brand of hope.

So, on a day where those things seemed pretty scarce in my life, I offer you my attempt at something . . . hopeful.

One Dog

by:  Martin Achatz

after Richard Blanco's "One Today"

Yes, this is one of those dog poems
full of leather tongue, wet noses pressed
into crotches.  Because dogs are all about
hope.  For backyard hunts of gray
squirrels or screeching jays.
For a piece of hotdog bun to flake off,
fall to hardwood floor.  A fly
in the water dish, flash of mouse
in corner dark.  A dog survives
on hope, from first yawn and stretch
to pillow sigh.  Hope is what wags
the leash, digs in a box for a bone-
shaped biscuit.  At night, hope

slams the car door, enters the house,
calls out, sings out, Good girl! or Good boy!
Which is an invocation, a conjuring.
Yes, hope is a four-legged thing
that meets you after a long day
of reports and budgets, shivers its tail,
helicopters on the floor, humps
your shins, circles and circles and circles
until, exhausted, it flops on its back,
waits for your hand to reach down,
scratch its belly until it pisses
all over you in joy.

November 17: Elizabeth Alexander, "Butter," Bounty

Butter 

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon
and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,
butter melting in small pools in the hearts
of Yorkshire puddings, butter better
than gravy staining white rice yellow,
butter glazing corn in slipping squares,
butter the lava in white volcanoes
of hominy grits, butter softening
in a white bowl to be creamed with white
sugar, butter disappearing into
whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,
butter melted and curdy to pour
over pancakes, butter licked off the plate
with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture
the good old days I am grinning greasy
with my brother, having watched the tiger
chase his tail and turn to butter. We are
Mumbo and Jumbo's children despite 
historical revision, despite
our parent's efforts, glowing from the inside
out, one hundred megawatts of butter. 
_____________________________

Can't get around it:  one of the things everyone focuses upon around Thanksgiving is food.  After all, the holiday is all about giving thanks for the bounty in your life.  Food.  Friends.  Family.  The smell of turkey cooking in a steaming kitchen.  Pies sitting out on the back porch with Cool Whip, waiting for dessert.  Five people, chopping vegetables, setting out silverware and plates.  Glasses of wine.  And laughter and jokes and old stories.

This poem reminds me of all of that, and that's why I love it.

Saint Marty is kind of a sucker for butter, too.

January 20: Greatest President, Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day"

There was no poet at Donald Trump's inauguration.  Doesn't surprise me.  Honestly, I would have been surprised if there had been an inaugural poet.

So, in order to keep the dream alive, I have a poem written for President Obama's first inauguration.  It's a poem full love and light.  It still stirs me deeply, eight years after the first time I heard it recited by Elizabeth Alexander.  I remember how I felt that day.  The great pride I had in being a citizen of the United States.

I truly hope that Donald Trump proves me wrong.  I hope that he turns out to be the greatest president this country has every known.

Until that time, however, Saint Marty reserves the freedom to judge and criticize.  That's what democracy is all about, after all.

Praise Song for the Day

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other’s

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Frost--the first inaugural poet

December 5: Poet Laureate of the U. P. Nominee, Poet of the Week, Maya Angelou, "Glory Falls"

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December 3: Parrot in the Trees, Elizabeth Alexander, "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe"

Ars Poetica.  Translation:  the art of poetry.  I thought it would be a good way to end the week of Elizabeth Alexander with her take on the art of poetry.

I often think about the art of poetry, what moves me as a reader and writer.  I am a fairly narrative poet.  I need something to metaphorically hang my hat on when I read a poem.  A point of entry.  That point of entry is usually some kind of story.

Sometimes the story exists in the background, like a parrot hiding in tropical trees.  It's there, but it's difficult to see.  You have to concentrate to see the green feathers in the leaves and fronds.  That's the kind of poem that excites me.  That's my art of poetry.

Then again, one of my poet friends writes poems that are crazy flights of language and associative imagery, and I love his stuff, too.  So that's my art of poetry, too.

Anything can be good poetry.  Maybe Saint Marty isn't that picky.

Ars Poetica #100:  I Believe

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves
(though Sterling Brown said

"Every ‘I' is a dramatic ‘I'"),
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I'm sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

Can you spot the parrot?

December 2: Winter Solstice, Elizabeth Alexander, "Equinox"

Okay, I am tired.  I'm not going to belabor this post.  I have a poem from Elizabeth Alexander for you.  I chose it because we are approaching the winter solstice, and the poem is about the vernal equinox.

That's it.  Saint Marty out.  Expect something more substantive tomorrow.

Equinox

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

Now is the time of year when bees are wild

and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped

loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants

in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.

I have found their dried husks in my clothes.

They are dervishes because they are dying,

one last sting, a warm place to squeeze

a drop of venom or of honey.

After the stroke we thought would be her last

my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped

a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,

walked outside, and lay down in the snow.

Two years later there is no other way

to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light

as an empty hive, and she is breathing.

Solstice at Stonehenge

December 1: Book Club Food, Elizabeth Alexander, "Butter"

It's Book Club night at my house.  My wife is in the kitchen, whipping up some barbecue chicken dish.  Soon, our dining room table will be full of all kinds of delicious treats.  Chili and shrimp and cheese curds.  Oh, and we'll talk about a book, too.

Tonight's literature of choice is The Boys in the Boat.  The food of choice remains to be seen.  I'm sort of leaning towards the cheese curds.

But Saint Marty is always up for something new, as long as it has a lot of butter in it.

Butter

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

My mother loves butter more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into butter! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,

butter melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, butter better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

butter glazing corn in slipping squares,

butter the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, butter softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, butter disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

butter melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, butter licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to butter. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite   

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of butter.

November 30: Poem of Hope, Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day"

I need a poem of hope today.  I don't want to talk about the disaster of Donald Trump or the attacks at Ohio State.  I want to leave Kellyanne Conway where she belongs--in darkness and silence.  Ditto Steve Bannon and Mike Pence.  No room for haters and racists in this post.

I want to remember a better time.  A kinder, gentler time.  A time when hope was not piggybacked on disenfranchisement and intolerance.  It was the morning of January 20, 2009.  Millions of people joined together to celebrate diversity and a better tomorrow for everyone, not just in the United States, but the whole world.

Care to take a step back with Saint Marty?

Praise Song for the Day

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

 

Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other’s

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

If only it really worked!

November 29: Feeling a Little Old, Elizabeth Alexander, "Autumn Passage"

I am feeling a little . . . old today.  I think it has a lot to do with work and grading and responsibility.  In a couple hours, I have sixteen young people waiting for me to walk into a classroom and somehow teach them something about life.

The problem is that I haven't really figured out life.  I don't want to tell my students that, though.  It may scare the shit out of them.  They're going to have to discover that little piece of knowledge on their own.  Right now, they're full of hope.  They think that the world revolves around them.  I know.  That's what I used to think when I was their age.  I thought that I was going to make a real difference.  A big difference.  That's not the way things turned out. 

I hope I've made the world a little better with my teaching and writing and parenting and husbanding.  I hope that I've led a George Bailey kind of life.  Small contributions to the human story.  That would be okay by me.

Saint Marty has had, for the most part, a wonderful life.

Autumn Passage

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

On suffering, which is real.
On the mouth that never closes,
the air that dries the mouth.
On the miraculous dying body,
its greens and purples.
On the beauty of hair itself.
On the dazzling toddler:
"Like eggplant," he says,
when you say "Vegetable,"
"Chrysanthemum" to "Flower."
On his grandmother's suffering, larger
than vanished skyscrapers,
September zucchini,
other things too big. For her glory
that goes along with it,
glory of grown children's vigil,
communal fealty, glory
of the body that operates
even as it falls apart, the body
that can no longer even make fever
but nonetheless burns
florid and bright and magnificent
as it dims, as it shrinks,
as it turns to something else.

Merry Christmas, you wonderful old building and loan!

November 28: Poet of the Week, Elizabeth Alexander, "Crash"

Elizabeth Alexander was the poet at President Obama's first inauguration.  I remember it clearly, watching her on that cold January morning.  She was somehow able to capture the hope of that moment with her poem.  The feeling that the United States really had changed for the better.

Elizabeth Alexander is the Poet of the Week, because she reminds Saint Marty of a better time, a kinder time.  A time when it seemed possible to walk away from a plane crash with just a couple scratches.

Crash

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

I am the last woman off of the plane

that has crashed in a cornfield near Philly,

picking through hot metal

for my rucksack and diaper bag.

No black box, no fuselage,

just sistergirl pilot wiping soot from her eyes,

happy to be alive. Her dreadlocks

will hold the smoke for weeks.

All the white passengers bailed out

before impact, so certain a sister

couldn’t navigate the crash. O gender.

O race. O ye of little faith.

Here we are in the cornfield, bruised and dirty but alive.

I invite sistergirl pilot home for dinner

at my parents’, for my mother’s roast chicken

with gravy and rice, to celebrate.

November 21: Poet of the Week, Miller Williams, "For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman"

So, there have been five poets who have read at U. S. presidential inaugurations since 1961:  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, and this week's Poet of the Week--Miller Williams.  Funny enough, all of these poets participated in the inaugural ceremonies of Democratic Presidents of the United States.  John F. Kennedy.  Bill Clinton.  Barack Obama.  You can decide for yourself why no poet has read at the presidential inauguration of a Republican.

There's a big brouhaha on the Internet right now about what poet would read at the inauguration of Donald Trump.  Lots of bad protest verse is being written.  My prediction is that there will not be a poet at the Trump inauguration.  It would be too difficult to get through the crowds in white sheets.  (That is my one and only Trump joke for this post.)

Miller Williams read at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton.  Williams was a native of Arkansas (just like Maya Angelou four years before).  Later in the week, I will include Williams' inauguration poem.  Tonight, however, I found one that speaks to any father of a teenage daughter.

Saint Marty wishes he had written this poem.

For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

by:  Miller Williams

Because you’ll find how hard it can be

to tell which part of your body sings,

you never should dally with any young man

who does any one of the following things:

tries to beat all the yellow lights;

says, “Big deal!” or “So what?”

more than seven times a day;

ignores yellow lines in a parking lot;

carries a radar detector;

asks what you did with another date;

has more than seven bumper stickers;

drinks beer early and whiskey late;

talks on a cellular phone at lunch;

tunes to radio talk shows;

doesn’t fasten his seat belt;

knows more than God knows;

wants you to change how you do your hair;

spits in a polystyrene cup;

doesn’t use his turn signal;

wants you to change your makeup;

calls your parents their given names;

doesn’t know why you don’t smoke;

has dirt under his fingernails;

makes a threat and calls it a joke;

pushes to get you to have one more;

seems to have trouble staying awake;

says “dago” and “wop” and words like that;

swerves a car to hit a snake;

sits at a table wearing a hat;

has a boneless handshake.

You’re going to know soon enough

the ones who fail this little test.

Mark them off your list at once

and be very careful of all the rest.

Robert Frost at President Kennedy's Inauguration

November 14: Poet of the Week, Richard Blanco, "One Today"

I have chosen a Poet of the Week who makes me feel hope.  Richard Blanco--Cuban immigrant, gay, inaugural poet for President Obama's second term.  I was sick the morning of that inauguration.  Throwing up.  But I remember hearing Blanco read his inaugural poem "One Today" on the television.  Like Elizabeth Alexander's poem four years earlier, Blanco's lines filled me with hope for America.  All America.

That's why I chose Richard Blanco today.  For the hope that kindness will prevail in the world.  That people won't learn to tolerate intolerance.  I need some hope tonight.  It's been a long, disappointing day.

Saint Marty wishes he could go back to that morning in January four years ago, when hope fogged the air like the breath of the tired, hungry, huddled masses, yearning to be free.

One Today

by:  Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

November 27: Beautiful and Familiar Glory, Christmas Essay, Elizabeth Alexander, "Butter," Off the Top of My Head

Ives was sitting beside Annie in his old neighborhood church on another Christmas Day looking up at the altar.  There were vases with dozens of orchids on either side of the chalice and pots of blossoms set out on the marble floors and against the columns, garlands of ivy strung along the gallery above.  In the choir stall they had installed the creche with its figures of the shepherds and kings and angels on high and the Holy Family inside the stable, the baby Jesus, the light of this world, at its center.  And they had covered the roof of the stable with evergreen boughs and someone had burned fragrant incense.  That morning as Ives first walked into the sanctuary again, hat in hand and with his wife by his side, he remembered that beautiful and familiar glory.

Ives seems to measure his life by Christmas memories.  The Christmas he first met his wife, Annie.  The Christmas Annie was pregnant with their first child.  The Christmas Ives experiences a mystical vision of God's goodness.  The Christmas their son, Robert, was killed on the steps of a church.  Christmas is a touchstone of family joy and sorrow for Ives.  Beautiful and familiar glory.

Christmas memories have been with me all day.  I've been working on my annual Christmas essay.  I made good progress.  By the time I go to bed tonight, I hope to have it pretty much completed.  I started at around 7:30 this morning, while my family was still sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey.  The house was filled with Christmas lights and silence, except for the occasional snore or fart from a sleeping form.  I was able to really focus for an extended period of time.

This afternoon, I practiced with my band for our Christmas concert next weekend.  It's been over a year since we recorded the songs on our Christmas CD, so we had to reacquaint ourselves with the music.  Come up with some different arrangements.  Make a few adjustments.  It was a productive rehearsal.

Tonight, while my daughter and her friend (who's a boy) are watching Netflix, I will be working on my Christmas essay again.  Hopefully, putting the finishing touches on it.  My goal is to have it pretty much done by the time my wife gets home from work.

I am really thankful that I've had so much writing time today.  That it feels like I'm so close to completion.  I've been struggling with this essay for quite some time; I was almost at the point of abandoning the idea of having a new Christmas essay this year.

No fairy tale this evening.  Saint Marty's saving up his creativity reserves for tonight.

Butter

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

My mother loves butter more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into butter! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,

butter melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, butter better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

butter glazing corn in slipping squares,

butter the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, butter softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, butter disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

butter melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, butter licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to butter. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite   

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of butter.

Off the Top of My Head

February 4: Twitter Poetry, Micropoetry, Elizabeth Alexander

One of the recent developments in poetry is what has been termed micropoetry.  Poets use the constraints of Twitter to write short, concise, beautiful poems.  Almost haiku.  In 140 characters.  It's a difficult challenge.  But some of the best poets working do it.  Billy Collins.  Sherman Alexie.

And Elizabeth Alexander. Alexander was the poet for President Obama's first inauguration.  Widely unknown before January 20, 2009, she became a poet of note.  A poet to listen to.  A poet whose words matter.

She is also a poet who tweets poems, and she does it beautifully.

Saint Marty would kill to write a poem so concise and gorgeous.

Tweet

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

Inside the darkened bathroom/ we looked into the black mirror/ cracked the wintergreen candy/ watched sparks fly from our teeth.

How shall I tweet thee...