September 28: "Ballistics," New Collection of Poems, Bigfoot

I often wonder if what I write makes any difference in the world.

It seems like a lot of people read this blog.  I've been averaging several thousand pageviews a day.  The insecure part of me chalks that statistic up to Google searches gone wrong.  Out of the four thousand plus views Saint Marty received today, I can probably name ten or 20 of those readers as my friends.  Maybe the rest are Russian bots or AI cyborgs from the future.  

But there's no way around it:  poetry simply doesn't garner Stephen King-size audiences.

Billy Collins executes some poetry . . .

Ballistics

by: Billy Collins

When I came across the high-speed photograph
of a bullet that had just pierced a book —
the pages exploding with the velocity —

I forgot all about the marvels of photography
and began to wonder which book
the photographer had selected for the shot.

Many novels sprang to mind
including those of Raymond Chandler
where an extra bullet would hardly be noticed.

Non-fiction offered too many choices —
a history of Scottish lighthouses,
a biography of Joan of Arc and so forth.

Or it could be an anthology of medieval literature,
the bullet having just beheaded Sir Gawain
and scattered the band of assorted pilgrims.

But later, as I was drifting off to sleep,
I realized that the executed book
was a recent collection of poems written

by someone of whom I was not fond
and that the bullet must have passed through
his writing with little resistance

at twenty-eight hundred feet per second,
through the poems about his sorry childhood
and the ones about the dreary state of the world,

and then through the author’s photograph,
through the beard, the round glasses,
and that special poet’s hat he loves to wear.

Today, I saw several people posting pictures on Facebook of themselves holding copies of my new collection of poems, A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders.  My copies are on the way, but, as of 9:45 p.m. on this 28th day of the ninth month in the year of our Lord 2024, I have not held the book in my hands.

Walt Whitman revised Leaves of Grass his entire life, adding and deleting and rewriting again.  Emily Dickinson wrote over 1800 poems but published only ten during her lifetime.  It took J. D. Salinger ten years to finish The Catcher in the Rye.  J. R. R. Tolkien labored on The Lord of the Rings for 17 years.  Remembrance of Things Past ate up 14 years of Marcel Proust's 51-year life.

Me?  I've been living and writing about Bigfoot for over 20 years.  The oldest poem in my new collection predates the birth of my 23-year-old daughter.  That's a long time.  I wrote this book because it was something I wanted to read.  I think that's the reason most writers write--to satisfy their own particular interests and passions.

That doesn't mean A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders is going to resonate with millions and millions of readers.  I hope it does, but I'd be really shocked if that happened.  Then again, when I started this blog way back in 2010, I never dreamed that in 2024 it would still be going strong, with 1.6 million hits and close to 5700 posts.  

My Bigfoot is out in the world now, and this blog post will soon join the Big Hairy Guy.  I'm living proof that dreams do come true.  Now, will my words be meaningful to people who buy my book or read my blog?  Or will they use my Bigfoot poems as target practice, à la Billy Collins?  The jury's still out on that one.

But Bigfoot has been a good friend to Saint Marty/