June 11: Archy the Cockroach, Ambitions, Insignificant

...[Archy the cockroach] embodied both Elwyn's ambitions as a writer and his sense of being small and insignificant, as well as his need to hide from people...

The young E. B. White loved the character of Archy the cockroach created by newspaper columnist Don Marquis.  Archy was a poet reincarnated as a cockroach, and White truly identified with Archy's poetic endeavors and low self-esteem.  The future author of Charlotte's Web struggled with the urge to be read and his almost pathological shyness.

I'm not a shy person, but I do struggle with ambition.  I tend to suffer from bouts of extreme jealousy.  Nobody is safe.  Favorite authors.  Friends.  Colleagues.  In my life, I have lots of writer friends.  Some of them are fantastic and deserve all the attention they receive.  Others are mediocre and still receive lots of attention.  Most of them have full-time professor gigs at the university.  You can see where this discussion is headed.

I'm tired of being the only poet cockroach that doesn't teach full-time.  I'm tired of being insignificant.  Yet, at the moment, I'm stuck.  I have sometimes had this daydream that I was Robert Frost in a former life.  That would mean that I'm Frost's punishment.  His cockroach.

Saint Marty doesn't find that very comforting.

This guy's probably got tenure

March 24: Jobs, a Call, a "Web" Dip

As I've said in previous posts, I don't deal well with uncertainty.  I like knowing what to expect.  That's why I make detailed birthday and Christmas lists (with sizes, colors, shapes, editions, prices, and vendors clearly enumerated).  I don't want to risk the possibility of an ugly tie.

This morning, I received a phone call from one of the places where I interviewed last week.  The manager wanted me to spell out my availabilities in the afternoons again.  I think he's trying to work out a schedule that would allow me to work and teach.  That sounds very promising.  I have not heard from the other place I interviewed, which perturbs me.  I really don't want to make a decision until all the cards are on the table, so to speak.

I am happy that I'm at least getting interest in my applications.  I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a good employee.  My displacement has nothing to do with my job performance.  It's just a simple matter of policy changes and departmental adjustments.  I shouldn't be taking it personally.  It's business.  But, after you give close to 20 years of your life to a place, it feels very personal.

My question for E. B. White is straightforward this evening:

Am I going to enjoy whatever job I end up getting?

And the answer from the gospel according to Charlotte is:

...And then [Lurvy] took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down.  There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message.  It said:

SOME PIG!

Well, that's a pretty clear answer.  It's Charlotte's first message, and Lurvy is dumbfounded.  That means some kind of miracle is headed my way.  I don't need anything on the scale of a tenured university position falling out of the sky into my lap (although, that would be nice).  No, I'll take something small, like a spider web glistening with dew in early morning sunlight.

And tenure.

Saint Marty isn't picky.

Pick a street, any street

December 1: I Owe Ya One

Well, I owe you guys a post.  I blogged once on Friday and then got too tired to do it again.  Thus, I am now going to do a stream-of-consciousness post to make-up for my negligence of two days ago.

I am heading into my last week of official teaching at the university for the year.  One week of teaching and then final exam week.  I'm in pretty good shape.  My final exam is done.  My essay questions are done.  I've e-mailed my students their final instructions for the coming week.  All that's left is a lecture on It's a Wonderful Life, review for the final, and then class evaluations.

Of course, I have to actually grade the final exams next weekend.  That will take quite a bit of time.  And then there's all the math, totaling up all the points and determining final grades.  It's my least favorite part of the semester.  It's tedious and involves a good deal of guilt, especially when a student doesn't do well.

Yes, professors feel guilty when students fail.  There's this little equation that kicks in:

Student failure = Teacher failure

Guilt is a whole part of the teaching process for me.  I want my students to succeed.  When they don't, I start questioning where I went wrong.  Over the years, I have become less apt to take full responsibility for student failure.  However, failure of a class is a two-way street.  The students have failed to learn the material, and I have failed to teach it effectively.

Even though I've been a college professor for nearly 20 years, I haven't been able to develop a thicker skin about this subject.  I think it's because I'm a contingent faculty member.  My success isn't measured on publication and research.  My success is measured on teaching.  I need to be an effective teacher in order to retain my position at the university.

That's why I dream of tenure.  Tenure means you can be an absolutely shitty teacher and still be employed.  Not that I would do that if I had tenure.  But there's a certain amount of peace a security that comes with tenure, and I, unfortunately, will probably never have that peace or security.  Such is life.

Saint Marty may be a part-time professor, but he's a full-time worry wart.

I haven't reached the panic stage.  Yet.

May 29: PRINTING HISTORY, Getting Published, Not Publishing

At the front of my copy of The Catcher in the Rye comes this information:

PRINTING HISTORY

One incident appeared in a different form as

a story in COLLIER'S December 1945

One incident appeared in a different form as a story

in THE NEW YORKER December 1946

Little, Brown edition published July 1951

26 printings through 1968

Book-of-the-Month Club selection July 1951

Grosset & Dunlap edition published June 1952

Modern Library edition published September 1958

Franklin Watts edition published February 1967

Bantam edition / April 1964

52 printings through February 1981

It's a little story in and of itself.  J. D. Salinger's book is one of the most famous novels in the world, beloved by angst-ridden teenagers and assassins alike.  I believe Salinger only published a couple other things after Catcher, and then, like Willy Wonka, closed his factory doors forever.  There has been speculation about a vault of unpublished manuscripts since Salinger died in 2010, but no new J. D. Salinger novel has surfaced as of yet.

The publication history of a book says a lot about the book and the author.  I pick up a collection of poems by Sharon Olds, and its history contains the names of some of the most prestigious journals and magazines in the United States:  Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Ploughshares, and The American Poetry Review.  That's pretty friggin' impressive.  Sharon Olds could write and teach any where she wanted.  Salinger, regardless of his anemic publishing history, could have also walked into the English Department at Harvard and landed a tenured position with a six-figure salary.  (I can imagine the conversation with the Department Head:  "Oh, yes, Mr. Salinger.  Right away, Mr. Salinger.  Would you like a coffee enema, Mr. Salinger?")

I have a pretty unimpressive publishing history.  I've managed a couple of good print and online journals, but, for the most part, this blog has been my venue for transmitting my prose and poetry to the world.  I recently sent out a chapbook manuscript to a contest.  One of the requirements of submission was including a list of places where the poems in the collection had already appeared (a history).  I had to skip that page.  I could have made something up.  I've always wanted to publish in Paris Review and The New Yorker.  But some people frown upon that kind of thing.  They think of it as academic fraud.  Whatever.

I worry about publication.  I worry because publication is one of my tickets to full-time employment at the university.  If I won the Iowa Prize for poetry or the National Book Award, I would be offered a tenure-track job tomorrow.  I've thought about pulling a J. D. Salinger.  You know, publishing one really successful book and then disappearing from the public eye.  My fame would grow as I avoided photographers and reporters and Jehovah's Witnesses.  Hey, it worked for Salinger and Thomas Pynchon.

Of course, the hitch in that scenario is that I first have to publish something of real note.  Then I can turn into J. D. Salinger.  My worry is that I can't even get an obituary published right now.  So why would anybody want to hire me as a professor?

Saint Marty needs to publish or perish.  Unfortunately, perishing is a lot easier.

I could do this pose

March 21: Another Carol Dip, Don't Be Grieved, Ambiguity

My daughter is ill this morning.  She went to bed complaining of a sore throat and woke up vomiting.  She'll be going to the doctor, and she will also be getting her dance pictures taken.  I spend too much money on those damn costumes to miss getting portraits.  Hopefully, she'll feel better later on in the day.

I don't have a whole lot in the way of wisdom this morning. Some of my faithful disciples would say I never have a lot in the way of wisdom, and I'm OK with that statement.  I figure I've done my job if I make my readers laugh, shake their heads, or say to themselves, "What a dumbass."

Therefore, I will use my fall back tactic for my blog: a Carol dip.  I'm sure most of you are already aware of the rules.  I ask a question, flip through my copy of A Christmas Carol, and put my finger randomly on a page.  Where my finger lands is the answer to my question.  (I suddenly feel like Bob Barker on The Price Is Right explaining Plinko.)

All right, here goes. This is my question:

Will I eventually be hired full-time at the university as a tenured professor?
And my answer is...

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in.  His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most.  Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father.  Don't be grieved!"

Yeesh.  Bob Cratchit grieving over the death of Tiny Tim in Stave Four.  The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Well, first, it's an appropriate chapter from which to receive an answer about the future.  Second, it seems like a pretty grim answer.  Will I be hired full-time at the university as a tenured professor?  Don't mind it.  Don't be grieved.  Basically, I think I'm being told not to mourn, that I stand about as much a chance of landing a full-time professorship as Stephen King does of winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Not very uplifting.

On the other hand, I could interpret the answer another way.  Perhaps the answer means that I shouldn't mind/fret over it.  The full-time, tenure track job will come to me.  All I have to do is be patient.  There's something to be said for this interpretation.  I mean, yes, Bob Cratchit is grieving.  However, at the end of the scene, Bob says, "I am very happy!...I am very happy!"  That means that happiness is coming my way in this area of my life, right?  Right?

I'm not sure which of these interpretations is the more legitimate.  I'd like to believe the latter, but it just may be the former.  I'm not a big fan of ambiguity.  Well, this is my blog and my post, so I'm going to embrace the more affirmative answer.

Yay!  I'm going to be a full-time professor!  I think I'll make a cake for myself tonight to celebrate.  Thank you, Charles Dickens!  Thank you, Bob Cratchit!

Saint Marty says, "God bless us, every one!"

The evolution of Saint Marty