January 10, 2026: New Year, Renee Nicole Good, “They Shoot Poets, Don’t They?”

Greetings, disciples!

Welcome to a new year of Saint Marty.  I have not dropped off the face of the earth.  I have been recuperating from a lengthy holiday illness, and, to be honest, overwhelmed by the state of my country and the world in, general.

Now that the year of Sharon Olds is over for the blog, I will be announcing 2026’s featured poet in the next post.  She is a writer whom I’ve admired for years, and I’m sure you’ll fall in love with her, as well.

Speaking of poets, I, of course, have been so sad and angry and outraged by the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.  I never thought I’d live to see the day that a masked, armed federal agent would be able to shoot an innocent citizen in the face and walk away free.  A poet friend of mine sent me a text yesterday:

Jesus, Marty, Renee Good was one of us.  Poet, parent, liberal.  She could have been me or you . . . and some son of a bitch given a license to kill by [47] shot her three fucking times because she was fleeing his violent little children’s game.  I’m really pissed off.

Yes, Renee Good was a poet, mother, and wife.  She loved her family and neighbors.  And, like most poets I know, she was trying to make the world a better, safer, more loving place.  Like my friend, I am truly pissed off.  I’ve been drowning in a whirlpool of emotions these past few days.

And, like most poets I know, when I am overcome by tragedy or anger, I turn to words to try to sort out my emotions.

Her name was Renee Nicole Good, and Saint Marty honors her tonight , , , 

They Shoot Poets, Don’t They?

by: Martin Achatz

for Renee Nicole Good

Stop.  Just stop.

Stop being angry or outraged.

Stop jamming fingers or guns in faces.

Look into those faces instead, white or brown,

into those eyes, blue or brown, see

what you can’t see when whistles

scream in your ears, when tear gas

makes your eyes and noses weep.

See a mother who drives

her six-year-old son to school,

shoves his stuffed T-Rex into 

the glovebox so it’s there to greet

him at the end of the day.  See

a wife who needs to pick up

toilet paper and cheese and ketchup

from Kroger.  See a neighbor

who drops off a pan of lasagna

when the man next door loses

his 55-year-old spouse in the middle

of the night to a heart attack.  And

see a poet who sends words out 

into the universe, watches them dip, 

swirl, circle, away and away, 

pollinating, spreading, wildflowering 

until everyone is honeyed in beauty.

January 6: "New Calendar," Epiphanies, New Year

Billy Collins on new calendars and years . . . 

New Calendar

by:  Billy Collins

The poem of next year--

every week a line, 

every month a stanza,

and a tiny sun 

rising and setting

in every numbered square.

The poem of next year--that's what Collins calls his new calendar.  At the beginning of every January, we start composing this poem, week by week, line by line, month by month, and stanza by stanza.  We have no idea whether the poem will end up being a love sonnet or elegy.  A psalm of praise or a psalm of sorrow.  Each new year is a revelation.

This weekend, Christian churches celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany:  the appearance of the magi and the unveiling of hope for a broken world.  There are tons of synonyms for "epiphany":  insight, realization, oracle, discovery, shock.  Each of these words is about peeling the scales from your eyes and seeing the universe clearly, maybe for the first time.

Not all epiphanies are earthshattering.  In fact, most, I would say, are pretty ordinary and personal.  For instance, realizing you don't like guacamole.  Or that Carrie Underwood's "Underneath the Tree" is a better Christmas song than Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas."  (Listen to it if you don't believe me.)

After having a week off from work and teaching, I have come to some epiphanies about myself.  I am just one step away from being Howard Hughes.  I enjoy being by myself, and large groups of people make me incredibly anxious.  Now, I'm not going to lock myself in my bedroom and fill empty milk containers with urine.  Nor will I let my fingernails and toenails grow so long that they need to be registered as concealed weapons.  However, having minimal human interaction sounds quite appealing at the start of this presidential election year.

As I emerge like a wintering groundhog from my week of blissful disconnection, I know that my life will become very complicated very quickly on Monday, and there's no way I can avoid it.  That's the way things have been for a very long time for me.  Peace and quiet are distant cousins who live in a remote Scandinavian village without internet or cellular service.

But I have one more day before my vacation ends and 2024 begins in earnest.  I will still be ignoring most texts and phone calls tomorrow.  I may even wear sunglasses and a fake moustache when I go grocery shopping.  And, if you insist on posting Trumpian conspiracy theories about stolen elections and the "patriots" who stormed the U. S. Capitol Building and killed police officers, I will most likely unfriend and block you on my social media.  Not because I think everybody should agree with me 100% of the time.  I just don't want racists, homophobes, xenophobes, transphobes, and traitors as friends or acquaintances.

These are Saint Marty epiphanies for tonight and the coming year.

January 1: New Year, New Book, Same Ole Me

Greetings, faithful disciples!

Welcome to a new year of Saint Marty.  My goal for the next 365 days is to remain a faithful, daily blogger.  I'm not sure how realistic that goal is.  However, since this is a day of new beginnings, let's give it a whirl.

Now, I know you're all wondering what the new book will be for the year 2023.  Leaving Ernest Hemingway behind, I have considered a number of options.  As you know, I started this little tradition near the beginning of this blog.  I believe the first book was Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  I have cycled through a lot of texts in the ensuing years--Moby-Dick, Charlotte's Web, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and The Old Man on the Sea, to name a few.  However, I have never chosen a collection of poems, unless you count Maggie Nelson's Bluets (which toes that fine line between prose and poetry).

This year, I've decided to focus on a book by one of my favorite poets--Mary Oliver.  The title of the book is Devotions:  The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver.  I made this choice for a few reasons.  First, Mary Oliver is just plain amazing.  Each one of her poems leaves me breathless with its beauty.  Second, Oliver was one of my friend Helen's favorite poets.  In honoring Mary Oliver, I'm also honoring the memory of my friend.  Third, because I wanted to.  My blog, my rules.

So, Day One of the Year of Mary Oliver:

I Wake Close to Morning

by:  Mary Oliver

Why do people keep asking to see
          God's identity in papers
when the darkness opening into morning
          is more than enough?
Certainly any god might turn away in disgust.
Think of Sheba approaching
          the kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think she had to ask,
          "Is this the place?"

Mary Oliver saw grace in every tiny moment she lived.  She saw it in the darkness of death as well as the coming light of a new day.  Think of that.  Living each day of your life staring into the face of God.  I think that's what Mary Oliver did.

Of course, we all struggle.  We all have times that leave us sapped and unwilling to face the blizzard of another 24 hours.  That pretty much describes my life for the last eight or nine months.  

Yet, God is out there.  We just have to peel the scales away from our stupid eyes in order to see Him.  Most of the time, we're just like kids, sitting in the backseat of the car, whining and asking, "Are we there yet?"

So, on this first day of a new year, I embrace the fact that, when I want a face-to-face with the Almighty, all I have to do is go outside and watch the sunset.  Or reach over and scratch my puppy's belly and watch her bask in the pure contentment of my attention.

Saint Marty is happy to be with Saint Mary Oliver tonight.

January 1: Eighty-Four Days, Hell of a Two Years, 2022

The beginning of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea . . . 

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

"Santiago," the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up. "I could go with you again. We've made some money."

The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.

"No," the old man said. "You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them."

"But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks."

"I remember," the old man said. "I know you did not leave me because you doubted."

"It was papa made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him."

"I know," the old man said. "It is quite normal."

"He hasn't much faith."

"No," the old man said. "But we have. Haven't we?"

"Yes," the boy said. "Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace and then we'll take the stuff home."

"Why not?" the old man said. "Between fishermen."

They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen. The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana. Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.

When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.

I truly sympathize with Santiago this first day of 2022.  Eighty-four days of bad luck.  No fish.  First, accompanied by the boy, and then alone on an empty sea.  What I admire is Santiago's attitude.  He keeps fishing, day after day, returning empty-handed night after night.  Yet, he doesn't succumb to self pity or depression.  Ever.

It has been a hell of a two years.  I start 2022 in COVID quarantine.  I'm pretty sure I'm COVID positive.  My wife tested positive on December 30th.  I woke up on December 31st with a runny nose and sore throat.  During the day, I progressively felt worse.  Today, I'm speaking with a Kathleen Turner rasp.  I just went for a short walk with my puppy, and I am absolutely wiped out.  I haven't been able to get tested to confirm my diagnosis.  That will happen in a couple days.

I could feel sorry for myself.  I don't.  Omicron is spreading faster than measles in an anti-vaxxer convention.  For two years, I've avoided getting sick.  Time caught up with me.  Perhaps I let down my guard.  Made a stupid mistake.  Became a little cocky.  I'm fully vaccinated.  I've had my booster.  That is why I'm not in the hospital, waiting for a ventilator.  

Here's the thing.  On January 1, 2020, I said to myself that it was going to be a better year than 2019.  It wasn't.  This year, I have no expectations.  I'm like Santiago, returning after a long day of fishing.  I'm going to tiptoe into this New Year.  Approach 2022 like it's a fawn in my backyard that I don't want to startle.  I'll just sprinkle some feed corn on the ground.  

An offering for 2022 to come in, eat, and maybe bed down for a while against the shelter of Saint Marty's house.

January 1: Source of Our Strength, Harbinger of Something Miraculous, Ham Dinner

Merton craves craves renewal and finds strength in weakness . . .

I came out of the presbytery with three books under my arm. I had hoped that I could begin taking instructions at once, but the pastor had told me to read these books, and pray and think and see how I felt about it in a week or ten days’ time. I did not argue with him: but the hesitation that had been in my mind only an hour or so before seemed to have vanished so completely that I was astonished and a little abashed at this delay. So it was arranged that I should come in the evenings, twice a week. 

“Father Moore will be your instructor,” said the Pastor. 

There were four assistants at Corpus Christi, but I guessed that Father Moore was going to be the one whom I had heard preaching the sermon on the divinity of Christ and, as a matter of fact, he was the one who, in the designs of Providence, had been appointed for this work of my salvation. 

If people had more appreciation of what it means to be converted from rank, savage paganism, from the spiritual level of a cannibal or of an ancient Roman, to the living faith and to the Church, they would not think of catechism as something trivial or unimportant. Usually the word suggests the matter-of-course instructions that children have to go through before First Communion and Confirmation. Even where it is a matter-of-course, it is one of the most tremendous things in the world, this planting of the word of God in a soul. It takes a conversion to really bring this home. 

I was never bored. I never missed an instruction, even when it cost me the sacrifice of some of my old amusements and attractions, which had such a strong hold over me and, while I had been impatient of delay from the moment I had come to that first sudden decision, I now began to burn with desire for Baptism, and to throw out hints and try to determine when I would be received into the Church. 

My desire became much greater still, by the end of October, for I made the Mission with the men of the parish, listening twice a day to sermons by two Paulist Fathers and hearing Mass and kneeling at Benediction before the Christ Who was gradually revealing Himself to me. 

When the sermon on hell began, I was naturally making mental comparisons with the one in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and reflecting on it in a kind of detached manner, as if I were a third and separate person watching myself hearing this sermon and seeing how it affected me. As a matter of fact this was the sermon which should have done me the most good and did, in fact, do so. 

My opinion is that it is a very extraordinary thing for anyone to be upset by such a topic. Why should anyone be shattered by the thought of hell? It is not compulsory for anyone to go there. Those who do, do so by their own choice, and against the will of God, and they can only get into hell by defying and resisting all the work of Providence and grace. It is their own will that takes them there, not God’s. In damning them He is only ratifying their own decision —a decision which He has left entirely to their own choice. Nor will He ever hold our weakness alone responsible for our damnation. Our weakness should not terrify us: it is the source of our strength. Libeuter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi. Power is made perfect in infirmity, and our very helplessness is all the more potent a claim on that Divine Mercy Who calls to Himself the poor, the little ones, the heavily burdened. 

My reaction to the sermon on hell was, indeed, what spiritual writers call “confusion”—but it was not the hectic, emotional confusion that comes from passion and from self-love. It was a sense of quiet sorrow and patient grief at the thought of these tremendous and terrible sufferings which I deserved and into which I stood a very good chance of entering, in my present condition: but at the same time, the magnitude of the punishment gave me a special and particular understanding of the greatness of the evil of sin. But the final result was a great deepening and awakening of my soul, a real increase in spiritual profundity and an advance in faith and love and confidence in God, to Whom alone I could look for salvation from these things. And therefore I all the more earnestly desired Baptism.

I truly love the idea of weakness being the source of strength.  The whole Jesus narrative embodies this idea.  Christ wasn't born in a palace, attended by servants or handmaids or wet nurses.  Nope.  His parents were poor.  Travelling by donkey.  I suppose the modern equivalent of that would be hitchhiking or driving across country in a 1982 Pinto.  Jesus' birth is all about humility.  Finding beauty in cow shit and piles of dirty straw.  Power in poverty.

This first day of the new year, I'm struck by this notion.  I just poked around Facebook, looking at the posts of friends and family.  Many of them celebrate the end of 2020, which, I must agree, was a pretty wretched year on many levels.  Yet, the idea of the changing of a number somehow signifying a change of luck or circumstance is, at the very least, misguided.

The only way that January 1, 2021, will be the harbinger of something miraculous is if the entire human race admits its weaknesses and failings.  If all people  start to wear facemasks and practice social distancing.  Millionaires and billionaires have Scrooge moments and begin to distribute their wealth to the poor and hungry.  Politicians embrace true servitude and remember that they work for us, not the other way 'round.  And everyone, down to the last person on this planet, treats everyone else as if they are children of God.  Embodiments of the divine.

If that happens today, things would begin to change.  Instead of accumulating money, we'd stockpile kindness and generosity.  Each day would dawn with hope, end with thankfulness.  That would be a real revolution, based on love instead of power.  Donald Trump would be ladling soup for the starving.  Mitch McConnell handing out blankets to the homeless.  Members of the Supreme Court marching for equality and justice for everyone, regardless of race, gender, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.  It would be heaven on Earth.  That's the real message of Christ's nativity.

So, if you want 2021 to be different than 2020, practice kindness.  All day.  Every day.  Treat this planet with respect.  Hold others accountable for cruelty and hatred.  Be a friend.  A lover.  A miracle.  

I am a weak person.  Subject to anger and despair and jealousy.  I admit that.  Yet, I am graced, despite all of these failings.  Or because of them.  Grace is not about earning something.  It's about receiving something you don't deserve.  Power in poverty.  Wealth in want.

Tonight, I am having a ham dinner.  The ham was given to my family by a friend near the beginning of our quarantine, along with several bags of other groceries.  Scalloped potatoes.  Wine.  It will be a feast provided by love.  A true communion that will feed not just our bodies, but our spirits.  

This is how Saint Marty will remember the beginning of 2021.

January 3: Burial, Naomi Shihab Nye, "Burning the Old Year"

In a couple of hours, my wife and I will be driving out to the cemetery for the burial ceremony of her grandmother.  It will be the end of a long journey that began exactly one week ago, in the old year.  Now, we will begin the new year with a letting go.  It will be cold and white and beautiful with a fresh layer of snow.

This week, I am going to include poems about the New Year by poets who I admire and love.  The first comes from Naomi Shihab Nye.  It's all about losses and leavings.  Appropriate for this afternoon's gathering.

Saint Marty wishes everybody a prosperous New Year, filled with more hopes than regrets.

Burning the Old Year

by:  Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

January 5: New Year, Julianna Baggott, "Eve Recalls Birthing and Her Discovery of Metaphor"

It is a new year, and I'm planning to change the line-up for Saint Marty.  I'm getting a little tired of the current Sunday through Saturday schedule.  I'm not sure what I'm going to keep and what I'm going to mothball.  I want to get back to the roots of this blog, when I was writing about saints.  That's going to happen in some way.  But I'm not sure how just yet.  I just wanted to make you aware of some kind of shakeup.

I have a new poem for the first Monday of the new year.  It comes from one of my favorite poets:  Julianna Baggott.  I received a copy of her collection Compulsions of Silkworms & Bees for Christmas, and it has been changing me, poem-by-poem.  It's, basically, a meditation of poems, poetry, and poets.  So smart and moving.

Saint Marty wants to be Julianna Baggott when he grows up.

Eve Recalls Birthing and Her Discovery of Metaphor

by:  Julianna Baggott

My baby's purple head newly wrung of blood
reddened.  Adam rubbed his body dry, no longer fish-like,

while I fisted my own stomach, to push out
the shining clots as dark red and bruised, ground-rotting apples,

my stomach, too, like the softened fruit, the way only the skin
     holds shape
when the inside has turned to meal.  My belly dull-colored,

almost gray and empty, I was the first to see how one thing
stands sadly for another, emotion mingling sweetly,

cruelly with the world.  I knew what it was to be
not free, but freed from, to be the garden left behind,

not just the willow, but all the sagged limbs weeping.

A great Christmas present

January 7: "Rye" Dip Monday, New Year, Old Friends

Last year, on Mondays, I fell into the habit of doing what I called a Carol dip.  I asked one of the burning questions I had about my life (things like "Will my pants fit tomorrow morning?" and "Did I remember to unplug the toaster?"), and then I flipped through my copy of A Christmas Carol and randomly put my finger on a page to find my answer.

Today, I inaugurate Rye Dip Monday.  The same rules apply, except that I'm depending on the pages of The Catcher in the Rye instead of Charles Dickens' tale of Ebenezer Scrooge.  I'm sort of leery about using Salinger.  Holden's story isn't quite a feel-good, Readers Digest kind of book.  I may not get quite so many happy answers from it as I did from Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit.  However, I will play the cards that are dealt me, to quote Kenny Rogers.

Before I move on to my question, I want to sit here and enjoy the peace around me at the moment.  I'm still on vacation.  My daughter and son are at school.  The TV is silent.  The Christmas tree is glowing in the corner of the room, and I have a few hours of solitude stretching out before me like a lazy cat.  I could really get used to this full-time, tenured professor kind of lifestyle.

Speaking of which, this afternoon, my wife and I are meeting some friends from the university for lunch.  Matt is a full-time professor in creative writing, and he has the kind of existence I dream about.  He publishes books like crazy.  He's on his way to tenure.  He just bought a huge house with like four bedrooms and twenty bathrooms (OK, I'm exaggerating a little--but it's a big house!).  Don't misunderstand me.  He works hard for everything he has.  I don't begrudge him a thing.  However, it is sometimes difficult to hold my jealousy in check.  It's one of my many character defects.  But I'm looking forward to spending some time with Matt and his wife, Louisa, who are simply all 'round lovely people.

On with business now.  In this new year, my first question for Rye Dip Monday sort of relates to my friend Matt:

Will I ever be in the same circumstances as Matt, job-wise and house-wise?

And the answer from J. D. Salinger is:

Finally I got out of bed, with just my pajamas on, and opened the door.  I didn't even have to turn the light on in the room, because it was already daylight...

There you have it.  Opportunity is going to knock for me, I just have to get out of bed and open the door.  (Of course, for Holden, it's a doorman and a pimp knocking, looking to collect money, but let's not go there.)

Maybe 2013 is going to be a good year for Saint Marty.

I just need the directions to this intersection