August 11: Classic Saint Marty, Bon Appetit, New Cartoon

I'm totally taking it easy this afternoon.  Going back into the vaults for today's post.  This Classic Saint Marty originally aired on April 28, 2011, at the end of a long semester of teaching.  I also have a new cartoon for you guys.

Saint Marty's going to eat dinner now.  As Julia Child said, "Bon appetit!"

April 28:  Final Exam, Saint Peter Chanel, New Poem

I gave my last final exam of the semester this morning.  It really wasn't a final exam.  I gave that to my class last week.  Today, I simply handed back all of their graded papers and quizzes and tests.  One student, however, did take the exam today.  He wasn't able to take it last week because he had to travel downstate for a funeral.  Therefore, he showed up and took it today.

In general, I think exams are a waste of time.  They don't really test knowledge.  They simply test a student's ability to memorize and regurgitate facts on a piece of paper.  I'm really good at that sort of thing.  I'm the king of useless knowledge.  If you're playing Trivial Pursuit, you want me on your team.  In most of the courses I teach (which are writing courses), however, final exams are pointless.  That being said, I did give a final exam in my Good Books class this semester.

All of the books I selected for this class had something to do with hope.  I was trying to develop my students' thinking about maintaining hope in a world without hope.  We read The Lovely Bones, The Color Purple, Mr. Ives' Christmas, Hiroshima, and The Road.  Each of these works deals, in some way, with the idea of hope.  At the end of our last class last week, I told my students they were all full of hope.  One of the more jaded of the group said, "I think hope is unrealistic.  Hope doesn't really accomplish anything."  I stood there for a second, dumbfounded.  I couldn't believe I was hearing this from the mouth of an eighteen-year-old.

Today's saint, Peter Chanel, was born in Belley, France, in 1803.  After becoming a priest, he was sent as a missionary to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific.  When he arrived there, landing on the island of Futuna, Peter was very successful in converting the locals, including the son of the king.  The king, in retaliation, sent warriors to capture Peter.  The king's warriors caught Peter Chanel and clubbed him to death.  However, "within five months [of his death] the entire island was converted to the Faith."  In the face of tremendous opposition, Peter's message of hope continued to spread and bring people to God.

After my student made his statement, I stood silent for a moment.  Then I said, "Well, if you don't believe in hope, you might as well go home right now."  The student looked at me, confused.  I smiled at him.  "Why do you come to class?  In the hope of getting a degree.  Why do you want a degree?  In the hope of getting a job.  Why do you want a job?  In the hope of earning money.  Why do you want to earn money?  In the hope of buying a house or car, starting a family, having a good life."  I paused.  "If you think hope is unrealistic, you should quit college, go home, buy a lifetime supply of Cheetos, sit on the couch, and spend the rest of your life watching Dancing With the Stars and American Idol.  You might as well become an alcoholic and drug addict, as well.  Have some fun before you die."  My student stared at me, red-faced.  "Look," I said, quietly, "we all have hopes and dreams.  They're what keep us moving and living."  My hope-less student nodded.

Peter Chanel believed in hope.  So do I.

Saint Marty promised you a poem.  Here it is.  He prays you find hope in your heart tonight.

Final

I watch this student take
His final exam, hunched over
His desk, Ticonderoga No. 2 moving
Like a Geiger counter needle
Across the page as he answers
My essay question.  I want
To tell him it doesn't matter,
This hour-long effort to earn
An "A" in my course called
Good Books.  Whether he makes
The Dean's List or not, he won't
Win back the friendship
Of the boy he loved in high school
Who broke my student's nose
When my student confessed
His feelings.  He won't bring
His mother back from Florida,
Where she ran after her psych meds
Failed and she saw Hitler
Buying cabbage at Walmart.
I'm lonely, my student wrote
In his journal.  I have no
Friends.  My family's shit.
My test will not change
Any of these things.  Yet,
My student writes and writes,
In search of acceptance,
Praise, the perfect 4.0 life.
The final question I ask him
Is simple:  What have you learned
About hope in this class?

Confessions of Saint Marty

August 10: Catcher in the Rye, Weekly World News, New Poem, New Cartoon

"...That's all I'd do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.  I know it's crazy."

That's Holden talking to his sister Phoebe about what he'd like to do with his life.  He wants to be the catcher in the rye.  That's paradise for him.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time tonight philosophizing.  I have a new poem.  It's about paradise, perfection, heaven.  It's my latest in a series of poems I started a few years ago.  I had this big idea to write a book based on headlines from the tabloid, Weekly World News.  I actually have twenty pages of a manuscript.  Then I discovered that another poet had already written a book of poems based on Weekly World News.  I scrapped the idea.  However, every once in a while, I get the itch to write another Weekly World News poem.  I got the itch this morning, so I scratched it.

I have a new cartoon, as well.

Saint Marty's been busy today.

Man Hang Glides to Heaven

(title taken from a headline in Weekly World News)

No map to follow,
fat black dots to find,
blue ribbons to trace
to thumbprints of sea.
Jungles full of breadfruit,
forests thick with coyote,
glacier and prairie under
a migraine of Perseids.
None of these places.
Find a cliff, a mountain,
where wind drives hay
through trunks of cedar, maple.
Strap on those arms
of wax, feather.  Step to the edge.
Close your eyes.  Think
of everything perfect.
Pineapple on a coral atoll.
Your wife's tongue pressed
to your moon shoulder.
Your daughter's pinking
breath, infant December oxygen.
An albino doe in snowy birches,
white in white in white.
Think of all this.  Think hard.
Take a step.  Take another.
Spread your arms.
Then jump.

Confessions of Saint Marty

 

August 9: A Poem, Keith Taylor, "A Monk's Rule"

Tonight, I want to leave my disciples with a poem from someone I met this week on my pilgrimage to Rudyard and Paradise, Michigan.  His name is Keith Taylor, and he's not only a great poet, but also a kind and gentle human being.  He was gracious and humble, despite the pile of books he's written/edited and awards he's won.

Saint Marty wants to be him when he grows up.

Here's a poem from his collection If the World Becomes So Bright:

A Monk's Rule

But for you, my love,
I would take a monk's rule.
Rise long before dawn,
have a simple breakfast
of unbuttered toast and milk.
One cup of coffee, black.
I would go upstairs,
sit with paper and pen,
and plumb the deepest reaches
of my mind or soul or self.
Evenings I would read
nothing but books written
in the first millennium.

The monk himself

August 9: Hot-Shot in English, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Fairy Tale Friday

..."Just don't do it too good, is all," he said.  "That sunuvabitch Hartzell thinks you're a hot shot in English, and he knows you're my roommate.  So I mean don't stick all the commas and stuff in the right place."

Holden's roommate, Stradlater, is the speaker.  He wants Holden to write an essay for him because he knows Holden is a really good writer.  In fact, English is the only thing Holden's got going for him at the moment.  It's the only thing he's successful at.

I went to a book signing event this afternoon at a local bookstore.  Ostensibly, the signing was to publicize The Way North, the anthology of U. P. writers that was released in early spring.  I went to the event not expecting a whole lot.  The manager of the store, Lee, is an old friend, so I knew I'd have someone to talk to.  Plus, I worked at this particular bookstore for almost nine years as a seller.  It was like returning to an old apartment I lived in while in college; everything sort of the same but a little shinier and smaller.  And, to top it all off, I was with two other writers I've known for a while.  It wasn't a bad couple of hours.  Didn't sell any of my books, though.

However, the other poet at the table with me, Janeen, told me something quite flattering.  At the release party for The Way North in Kalamazoo, Bonnie Jo Campbell, bestselling novelist and finalist for the National Book Award, chose to read my poem from the anthology.  My poem.  "She really loved it," Janeen said, "and she did a great job."

I know it sounds stupid, but knowing that Bonnie Jo Campbell knows my name/read my poem was quite a thrill.  More than a thrill, actually.  I've been riding the wave of that knowledge all evening.  Bonnie Jo Campbell's novel, Once Upon a River, was one of my favorite books last year, and her short story collection, American Salvage, is absolutely stunning.  She's a big fan of Flannery O'Connor, too.  I've been stalking Bonnie's official Web site for quite a few years (anonymously as I don't want to sound creepy).  And now, I know Bonnie Jo Campbell likes my work.

On a side note, I once took a fiction workshop in which Bonnie Jo was a fellow student.  She was obviously bound for bigger, better things even back then.  Plus, she was the nicest person in the class.  So I've been on the outer edges of the Bonnie Jo Campbell universe for a while.

And now, for a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, in a little town named Flannery, a struggling sword-maker named Hubert lived.  Hubert made great swords.  All the local knights came to him for his blades.  The problem was that Hubert couldn't sell enough swords to support his family, so Hubert moonlighted at a local fork factory.  Every night, he worked an eight-hour shift making tines for forks, and he was never allowed to make any over-tine.  (Sorry, I had to do that.)

Hubert studied the work of all the greatest sword-makers in the kingdom.  The greatest sword-maker of all was a woman named Kazoo.  Kazoo's blades were elegant, beautifully carved, and sharper than an arctic wind.  Hubert sent Kazoo fan scrolls every day, but he never received any replies.

One day, however, a bundle was delivered to Hubert's doorstep by a traveling knight.  When Hubert opened the bundle, he found a wondrous sword, carved from silver, its hilt encrusted with precious jade.  It gleamed in the sunlight, and Hubert knew it was an original Kazoo sword.  Kazoo had read his scrolls.  Kazoo knew his name.

Hubert reached down to pick up the sword and mistakenly cut off his left hand.  Hubert's wife found Hubert dead that night, clutching the sword to his chest, a blissful smile on his face.

The moral of this tale:  Always lend a helping hand, but bring a tourniquet.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

She likes me!  She really likes me!