January 15: The Most Talented, Poetry Class, Working Hard

Certainly he would have been a printer if he hadn't been so interested in drawing.  He took classes whenever he could and had the good fortune of studying with George Bridgeman for figure drawing and Max Bechman for painting at the Art Students League.  Although he had never been the most talented of artists, as he'd tell his son, Robert, years later, he had a highly developed work ethic.  A conscientious and self-effacing laborer, ever humble before his craft, he never thought he'd have any money and figured out, as a young man, that he would always live humbly, "without means," practicing his illustrative and painterly skills into his old age.  And if he was lucky, getting along on numerous fleeting jobs, he might one day have a show of beautiful portraits--he very much liked the works of John Singer Sargent and in another life would have been content as the official portraitist of an exclusive men's club.  Perhaps he would make enough money to see something more of the world than just the view from his window or where the trains and subways of the mass transit system would take him.  Paris, Tahiti, Rome--names that he associated with artists and adventure.  That was all he wanted.  

Ives is a humble guy with a gift.  He can draw and paint, and he makes a good living as a commercial artist.   Yet, he remains down-to-earth, not really thinking he's anything special.  He's a hard worker.  He knows he will never be John Singer Sargent, but he dreams of seeing the world.  Places associated with beauty and art.

Since I was a kid, I always dreamed of being a famous writer.  In kindergarten, I created books of nursery rhymes, illustrating them with crayons.  In middle school, I wrote pornographic stories and sold them to friends for money to buy Star Wars bubblegum cards.  In college, I took fiction workshops and dreamed of being Stephen King.

My aspirations have become a little more realistic.  I want to publish another book of poems.  I want to be the next U. P. Poet Laureate.  And I want to be able to sleep in every once in a while, visit my son's classroom, and not stress about finances all the time.  (I wouldn't mind seeing a little of the world, either.  Rome sounds pretty good at the moment.)

Tonight, I got a taste of what it's like to be a full-time college professor.  It was the first class night of the graduate poetry seminar I'm teaching this semester.  I've been stressed about it all week long.  Haven't been sleeping well.  I woke up at 4 a.m. today and couldn't get back to sleep.  All day long, I suffered intestinal distress.  I had visions of being treated like a high school substitute teacher.  A "Kick Me" sign on my back and a thumb tack on my chair.

But it was a fantastic night.  We talked about poetic influences.  I told stories of studying with Sharon Olds and meeting Gwendolyn Brooks.  And then we wrote.  It didn't even feel like I was working.  It was...fun.

I've worked hard all my life.  Two or three part-time jobs at a time.  Book store cashier.  Church organist.  Medical records clerk.  Contingent college professor.  In the midst of all that, I've written.  Stories.  Poems.  Essays.  Published a book.  Been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice.  Not bad for a kid from the Upper Peninsula.

I still dream of achieving big things.  The Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer was 80 years old when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Doris Lessing was 88.

Saint Marty still has a shot.

If this old coot can win, so can I