June 6: Poet of the Week, Campbell McGrath, "Hemingway Dines on Boiled Shrimp and Beer"

A new week.  A new Poet of the Week.  Campbell McGrath--born in 1962 in Chicago.  MacArthur Genius.

And a new job.  It was great.  No phones ringing all day long.  I had extended periods of time to complete piles of work.  Plus, I was working with one of my best friends, Wonder Twin.  As in, we are so similar that we were probably separated at birth.  I met her first when she and her sister enrolled in my writing class at the university.  That was over 25 years ago, and we still enjoy each other's company.


Saint Marty had a good day, and now a good poem. . .

Hemingway Dines on Boiled Shrimp and Beer

by:  Campbell McGrath

I’m the original two-hearted brawler.
I gnaw the scrawny heads from prawns,
pummel those mute, translucent crustaceans,
wingless hummingbirds, salt-water spawned.
As the Catalonians do, I eat the eyes at once.
My brawny palms flatten their mainstays.
I pop the shells with my thumbs, then crunch.

Just watch me as I swagger and sprawl,
spice-mad and sated, then dabble in lager
before I go strolling for stronger waters
down to Sloppy Joe’s.  My stride as I stagger
shivers the islands, my fingers troll a thousand keys.
My appetite shakes the rock of the nation.
The force of my miction makes the mighty Gulf Stream.

April 28: Beauty and Love, Terrance Hayes, "God is an American"

When I got home last night after teaching, I had a couple glasses of wine to celebrate the end of the semester.  The wine went well with my snack of choice--Pringles and Easy Cheese.  Now, that may sound disgusting to some of my disciples, but it was a beautiful combination.

I have another Terrance Hayes poem for you all tonight.  You know, the MacArthur Genius.  National Book Award Winner.  Saint Marty Poet of the Week.  He's just stacking up the honors.

Hayes' sonnet is about love and beauty, as most sonnets are.  This morning's post was all about my work day.  The office.  Phones.  Patients.  More phones.  Computers.  Phones again.  Tonight's post is about beauty and love.

My son is out on the playground right now, playing with a new friend.  A little girl who just moved into the neighborhood.  He's been playing with her for a couple of days now.  My son is still having trouble controlling himself since his ADHD medication stopped working for him.  His dosage has been increased, and he's got an appointment with a doctor next month.  However, by evening, he is always on the edge of grabbing a toy sledgehammer and pounding a hole in a bathroom door.  He's my beautiful boy.  My beautiful, sometimes possessed boy.

My daughter is in another room, talking to her boyfriend on her phone.  She'll continue talking to him until she goes to sleep tonight.  While she's doing her homework.  Eating Ramen noodles.  Brushing her hair.  Brushing her teeth.  She'll even take the phone with her to bed and talk with him before she drifts off to dreams.  She's my beautiful girl.  My beautiful, teenager-in-love girl.

Tonight, I will have another glass of wine with my wife while we watch the 10 o'clock news.  We will laugh at the anchor's ears, which are large and a little uneven.   We'll share some Pringles and a can of Easy Cheese.  It will be a beautiful night with the beautiful woman I love.

See.  Saint Marty promised you beauty and love in this post.

God is an American

by: Terrance Hayes

I still love words. When we make love in the morning,
your skin damp from a shower, the day calms.
Shadenfreude may be the best way to name the covering
of adulthood, the powdered sugar on a black shirt. I am

alone now on the top floor pulled by obsession, the ink
on my fingers. And sometimes it is a difficult name.
Sometimes it is like the world before America, the kin-
ship of fools and hunters, the children, the dazed dream

of mothers with no style. A word can be the boot print
in a square of fresh cement and the glaze of morning.
Your response to my kiss is I have a cavity. I am in
love with incompletion. I am clinging to your moorings.

Yes, I have a pretty good idea what beauty is. It survives
alright. It aches like an open book. It makes it difficult to live.

October 25: Kay Ryan, Genius Award, and a Poem

Well, I want to offer you guys a poem tonight by a poet I admire.  Kay Ryan.  Former Poet Laureate of the United States.  Pulitzer Prize Winner.  MacArthur Genius.  Community college teacher and advocate.  She's really amazing.

Saint Marty hopes he grows up to be like her.

A Certain Kind of Eden 

 

by:  Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but

you can’t go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It’s all too deep for that.

You’ve overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you’re given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them—

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

Kay Ryan--an amazing artist