October 10: "Bathtub Families," Nobel Prize in Literature, "Lost in Space"

I spent the first couple hours of my day listening to a livestream of the announcement of this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  It was supposed to happen at 6:45 a.m. EST.  It didn't hadn't until after 7 a.m.  I never realized that Swedes weren't punctual.

In case you're curious, I didn't win.  It was the South Korean experimental novelist Han Kang.  A few minutes after the announcement, I received a message from one of my best friends.  "Robbed again!" he texted.  "You were the first person I thought of this morning when I saw that.  Always the bridesmaid never the bride, dammit!!!"

Perhaps next year, now that my Bigfoot book has been released, I will win.  In the meantime, I will just continue to love language, like Billy Collins . . . 

Bathtub Families

by: Billy Collins

is not just a phrase I made up
though it would have given me pleasure
to have written those words in a notebook
then looked up at the sky wondering what they meant.
No, I saw Bathtub Families in a pharmacy
on the label of a clear plastic package
containing one cow and four calves,
a little family of animals meant to float in your tub.

I hesitated to buy it because I knew
I would then want the entire series of Bathtub Families,
which would leave no room in the tub
for the turtles, the pigs, the seals, the giraffes, and me.

It's enough just to have the words,
which alone make me even more grateful
that I was born in America
and English is my mother tongue.

I was lucky, too, that I waited
for the pharmacist to fill my prescription,
otherwise I might not have wandered
down the aisle with the Bathtub Families.

I think what I am really saying is that language
is better than reality, so it doesn't have
to be bath time for you to enjoy
all the Bathtub Families as they float in the air around your head.

It was a long day of teaching and work, with very little in the way of downtime.  I did host the monthly meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle this evening.  Lots of people showed up, including some new faces.  We workshopped some drafts of poems and then celebrated an Open Mic.  I read from my new book (the first time I've been able to do that).

When I got home, I was pretty beat.  But then I got a text from another friend:  "Can you see the lights from your backyard?  We can see them here."

So, near 10 p.m., I found myself in my backyard, taking picture after picture of the auroras jetting across the heavens, unfolding like butterflies just out of their cocoons.  And it was magical.

Sure Han Kang won the Nobel Prize today, but Saint Marty got to show his son the Northern Lights for the first time.

A poem from yesterday . . .

Lost in Space

by: Martin Achatz

I'm not allowed to enter

my son's room anymore,

must stand at the bottom

of his steps, call up to him

the way I used to call him

from the front door when he was

younger and outside playing

in the backyard with sticks

and rocks and garden hose.

Tonight, under a bite of moon,

I gaze at two bright stars

in the heavens.  They may be

planets.  Perhaps Venus and Mars.

I don't know, refuse to dig out

my phone to check.  No, 

I'm simply happy to see 

them together up there,

so close, as if they could

throw their cosmic arms

around each other, embrace

like old classmates or war buddies.

Or maybe, just maybe, they are

father and son, separated by

hundreds of thousands of miles,

a divide that would take months

to cross.  Yet, there they are, 

next to each other up there,

so bright and alike they could

be each other on this dark 

night when my son is locked

in his room, light years away.

August 8: "Drawing Class," Marquette Poets Circle, Kindness

It has been a long day, and I'm not feeling particularly wise or smart right now.  

In the evening at the library, I hosted the monthly meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle.  I've been a part of this group for almost a decade now.  In the last year or so, I slowly took over leadership of the group from one of my best friends, an amazing individual who has been THE cheerleader for poetry in our area for a very long time.  I have learned so much from her as a poet and person.  There is no one nicer, kinder, and more generous with her time and talent.

 Tonight, there were about eight people present for the Poets Circle.  We spent the first 45 minutes or so writing.  I think we did three prompts.  I didn't write anything I'm going to share tonight, but it felt good to flex my poetry muscles.  Then, it was Open Mic.  Lots of great writers sharing, some for the first time.  

Funny, I never feel like I'm good enough to lead this group.  Yes, I can organize.  Sure, I can write poems and read poems and talk about poems.  However, I don't think I've ever learned how to lead with the humor and grace and generosity of my friend who used to lead the group.

Eventually, I may learn, lust like Billy Collins learns something new in today's poem . . . 

Drawing Class

by: Billy Collins

If you ever asked me

how my drawing classes are going,

I would tell you that I enjoy

adhering to the outline of a thing,

to follow the slope of an individual pear

or the curve of a glossy piano.

And I love trailing my hand

over the smooth membrane of bond,

the intelligent little trinity

of my fingers gripping the neck of the pencil

while the other two dangle below

like the fleshy legs of a tiny swimmer.

I would add that I can get lost

crosshatching the shadow of a chair

or tracing and retracing

the slight undercarriage of a breast.

Even the preparations call out to me--

taping the paper to a wooden board, 

brushing its surface clean,

and sharpening a few pencils to a fine point.

The thin hexagonal pencil

is mightier than the pen,

for it can modulate from firm to faint

and shift from thin to broad

whenever it leans more acutely over the page--

the bright yellow pencil,

which is also mightier than the sword

for there is no erasing what the sword can do.

We all started with the box and ball

then moved on to the cup and the lamp,

the serrated leaf, the acorn with its cap.

But I want to graduate to the glass decanter

and learn how to immobilize in lead

translucent curtains lifted in the air.

I want to draw

four straight lines that will connect me

to the four points of the compass,

to the bright spires of cities

the overlapping trellises,

the turning spokes of the world.

One day I want to draw freehand

a continuous figure

that will begin with me

when the black tip touches the paper

and end with you when it is lifted

and set down beside a luminous morning window.

On the way home tonight, I drove into a blazingly beautiful sunset.  I found myself reflecting on how I came to be in this position with the Poets Circle.  I've learned a lot in my life.  I started as a Computer Science major as an undergrad before switching to English.  I focused on fiction during my Master's program.  Finally, a little less than ten years later, I earned my MFA in poetry.  

Yet, the most important lesson I've learned in my life is this:  kindness.  Yes, assholes can rise to important positions (think of a certain former President of the United States with an orange complexion).  However, the people I admire most--whom I'm also privileged to call friends--are all incredibly kind.  That's something I try to remember every day of my life.

Saint Marty hopes he will be remembered for his kindness as well as his poetry.

December 13, 14, 15: "The Other Kingdoms," Music Kingdom, Poetry Kingdom, Friend and Heartbreak Kingdome

Mary Oliver grows sweetly wild . . . 

The Other Kingdoms

by:  Mary Oliver

Consider the other kingdoms.  The

trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding

titles:  oak, aspen, willow.

Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north

have dozens of words to describe its

different arrivals.  Or the creatures, with their

thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze.  Their

infallible sense of what their lives

are meant to be.  Thus the world

grows rich, grows wild, and you too,

grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be.

As a poet, like Mary Oliver, I like to know the names of things.  Trees.  Birds.  Flowers.  Fish.  The kingdoms of the world are full of sweetly wild bounty.  Language is a way of understanding these kingdoms, of becoming a part of them.

I have been sort of overcome these last few days.  Life has a way of getting out of control at this time of the year.  So much going on, both wonderful and crazy.  Kingdoms of music and friends and heartbreak and poetry.

Music Kingdom:  on Wednesday night at the library, there was a concert by Big Lake Band, a group that includes two of my closest friends, Linda and Seamus.  We've been making musical and poetic mischief together for close to 20 years.  They treated us to an hour of Christmas classics.  A little King + Country, Eartha Kitt, Bing Crosby, among others.  It filled me with joy:

Poetry Kingdom:  last night, the library hosted the holiday gathering of the Marquette Poets Circle.  Lots of great food, great people, and great poems.  Most of my closest poet friends were there, and we shared our love for each other and language.  When I first started attending the monthly MPC meetings, I had no clue how important these people would become to me.  Being together with these friends filled me with joy, as well:

Friend and Heartbreak Kingdom:  Today, one of my best poet pals, Gala, lost her 13-year-old fur baby, Oreo.  Gala texted me tonight to let me know.  Having a pet is a bargain with joy and grief.  For however many years that pet is in your life, you are treated to unconditional love.  Yet, in the end, you know you will have to endure loss, as well.  So, tonight, I am sending Gala all my love as she endures this parting:

These are the kingdoms I've been considering these last few days, getting ready for Graduation Kingdom tomorrow morning, when my daughter matriculates from college.  In the middle of all of these kingdom visitations, I also had time to finish my annual Christmas poem today.  So, if you're keeping score--Christmas essay, done; Christmas poem, done; Final Grading, not done.

Saint Marty still has a long way to go before he sleeps.

June 8: "Six Recognitions of the Lord," Wilbur, Fancy Words

Mary Oliver encounters God . . .

Six Recognitions of the Lord

by:  Mary Oliver

1.

I know a lot of fancy words.

I tear them from my heart and my tongue.

Then I pray.

2.

Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour

me a little.  And tenderness too.  My

need is great.  Beauty walks so freely

and with such gentleness.  Impatience puts

a halter on my face and I run away over

the green fields wanting your voice, your

tenderness, but having to do with only

the sweet grasses of the fields against

my body.  When I first found you I was

filled with light, now the darkness grows

and it is filled with crooked things, bitter

and weak, each one bearing my name.

3.

I lounge on the grass, that's all.  So

simple.  Then I lie back until I am

inside the cloud that is just above me

but very high, and shaped like a fish.

Or, perhaps not.  Then I enter the place

of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-

wanting.  When the blue jay cries out his 

riddle, in his carping voice, I return.  

But I go back, the threshold is always

near.  Over and back, over and back.  Then

I rise.  Maybe I rub my face as though I 

have been asleep.  But I have not been

asleep.  I have been, as I say, inside

the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating

on the water.  Then I go back to town,

to my own house, my own life, which has

now become brighter and simpler, some-

where I have never been before.

4.

Of course I have always known you

are present in the clouds, and the

black oak I especially adore, and the

wings of birds.  But you are present

too in the body, listening to the body,

teaching it to live, instead of all

that touching, with disembodied joy.

We do not do this easily.  We have 

lived so long in the heaven of touch,

and we maintain our mutability, our

physicality, even as we begin to

apprehend the other world.  Slowly we

make our appreciative response.

Slowly appreciation swells to

astonishment.  And we enter the dialogue

of our lives that is beyond all under-

standing or conclusion.  It is mystery.

It is love of God.  It is obedience.

5.

Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with

the fragrance of the fields and the 

freshness of the oceans which you have

made, and help me to hear and to hold

in all dearness those exacting and wonderful

words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:

Follow me.

6.

Every summer the lilies rise

     and open their white hands until they almost

cover the black waters of the pond. And I give

     thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,

it doesn't seem

     festive enough or constant enough, nor does the

name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come

     into it often enough.  Everywhere I go I am

treated like royalty, which I am not.  I thirst and

     am given water.  My eyes thirst and I am given

the white lilies on the black water.  My heart

     sings but the apparatus of singing doesn't convey

half what it feels and means.  In spring there's hope,

     in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in 

winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its

     leafy cave, but in summer there is

everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,

     the hospitality of the Lord and my

inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body

     through the water-lily world.

It's a pretty common theme in literature--this quest for the Lord.  Think about it.  Wilbur's quest for a friend in Charlotte's Web, and Charlotte answering from above.  The little spider sacrifices her life to save her porcine friend's life.  Then there's Holden's fantasy of saving all the children of the world from rushing off a cliff into adulthood.  All Holden wants to do is preserve everything innocent and pure.  Then there's Luke Skywalker using the power of the Force to defeat the Emperor with the help of the holy ghost of Obi-Wan.  And Scrooge's redemption because of visits from a trinity of Christmas spirits.  Frodo has to carry his ring/cross to the top of Mount Doom, and with it the hope of all of Middle Earth.  I could go on if you want me to, but you get the idea.

Oliver's encounters with the Lord in this poem are very transcendental--she sees beyond what she can see.  The Lord is in sweet grasses, clouds, a black oak, the wings of birds, and water lilies.  Basically, signs of the divine are everywhere, Oliver says.  We just don't open our minds or hearts or eyes enough to recognize them.  Because we are limited, impatient creatures.  To borrow from Biblical narrative, we are Paul on the way to Damascus, having to be struck blind to fully see and hear and experience God.

It has been a long day.  I got to the library at around 7:15 this morning, and I didn't leave until around 8:30 tonight.  I worked on event planning and a PowerPoint presentation and handouts.  For most of the day, I was holed up in my office, staring at computer screens.  However, it was work I enjoyed--creative and challenging.  This is my first recognition of the Lord today.  

It was my son's last day of school for the summer, and he managed to maintain all A's this academic year.  My daughter is studying to take the MCAT in July and will graduate with her bachelor's degree this coming December.  Even though my wife has some mental health struggles, she seems to be doing alright, at work and at home.  This is my second recognition of the Lord today.

The rear brakes on my Subaru have been grinding terribly for a couple weeks, getting progressively louder and more alarming.  Today, the husband of my wife's cousin fixed our brakes.  (From what I understand, the pads needed replacing.)  He did the work for free, and the parts only came to around $40.  I will do something to thank him for his generosity of time and labor and spirit.  This is my third recognition of the Lord today.

This evening, I got together with some poet friends for a monthly meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle.  Although only a few people showed up (it is summer), I was able to talk poetry, read poetry aloud, and listen to others read poetry aloud.  This might not sound like a whole lot of fun to my disciples who aren't into poetry, but, for me, it was my fourth recognition of the Lord today.

Also this evening, one of my best friends had an art gallery reception at the library.  We've known each other for over thirty years, and she has helped me through a lot of difficult shit in my life.  Her art is needle felting, and she created some amazing work for this show.  I got to hang with her for a little while tonight and enjoy her beautiful exhibit.  That was my fifth recognition of the Lord today.

Like I said, I was inside most of the day.  However, the view from my office window was alive with blue, blue sky and the kind of green you only see in Bob Ross landscapes.  Not a happy little accident of a cloud to be found.  And that was my sixth recognition of the Lord today.  

Like Oliver, Saint Marty knows a lot of fancy words.  Tonight, he tears those words from his heart and tongue, and offers a prayer of thanks for this water-lily day instead.

June 5: Fourth Dimension, William Blake, Odious Tasks

"He was at the top of his class when this happened," said Billy's mother.

"Maybe he was working too hard," said Rosewater.  He held a book he wanted to read, but he was much too polite to read and talk, too, easy as it was to give Billy's mother satisfactory answers.  The book was Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, by Kilgore Trout.  It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them.

One thing Trout said that Rosewater liked very much was that there really were vampires and werewolves and goblins and angels and so on, but that they were in the fourth dimension.  So was William Blake, Rosewater's favorite poet, according to Trout.  So were heaven and hell.

The fourth dimension sounds like a pretty wild ride according to Kilgore Trout.  Vampires and werewolves.  Heaven and hell.  It sounds like a Twilight fan's dream come true.  Doesn't surprise me that Blake is there, too.  I once took a class in the poetry of William Blake.  I came away from the semester believing that Blake had either been drinking too much lead-based ink or was not of this world.  Trout has answered my question.

It feels like I have been operating in the fourth dimension for the last couple of days.  Grading like crazy.  Writing a new poem.  Reading a poetry manuscript.  Trying to squeeze in some quality time with my family.  I have been operating so far out of time that I thought the Tony Awards were on TV last night.  Turns out I was off by a week.  Either that or I've already watched the Tony Awards next week, and now I'm back to the present.  Maybe I'm unstuck in time.  Wouldn't surprise me.

Tonight, I am going to a meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle.  It's workshop and open mic.  I've been pushing like crazy to get all my work done so that I can attend with a mind free of pressing obligations.  Graded three papers this afternoon.  Just finished an eight-hour shift at the medical office.  Once this blog post is done, I have nothing to worry about but poetry, poetry, poetry.  (Yes, I stole that little anaphora from Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish.")

I am a great believer in tackling odious tasks head-on.  That's why I started my day at 4:45 a.m., correcting essays for my online class.  There's a sense of great relief when the most difficult tasks are completed early.  All the rest of day is a piece of pecan pie (preferable to cake).  Typing this blog post is a pleasure.  Ditto picking a new Poet of the Week.  And going to the workshop tonight.  My conscience is free, and I can indulge myself.

That is the breadth of scope of my wisdom for today. 

Saint Marty is thankful this afternoon for check marks on to-do lists.