June 5: "Poems," Writing Projects, "New Poem"

Billy Collins meditates on his art . . . 

Poems

by: Billy Collins

Because words

move from left to right,

the three fish

in the print on the wall,

who are facing the other way,

appear to be swimming upstream.

I've been thinking about poetry a lot these last few days.  Out of necessity.  Currently, I'm working on the final edits of a manuscript that has been over ten years in the making.  If that weren't enough, this month I will finish a second manuscript, as well.  I sort of feel like Collins' fish swimming upstream against the current.  I will eventually get to the spawning pool, but not before I jump up a few waterfalls.

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoy the challenge of poetry.  Love revising and rewriting.  I get great joy in seeing a poem emerge from a slag heap of words on a page.  Poet Natalie Goldberg used this image for the process:

Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.

 Yes, I'm seeking the solid ground of black soil for my two current writing projects.  I've been composting for quite some time.  There's a whole lot of eggshells and coffee grinds (not to mention Bigfoot scat) on my pile, and I've been turning it over and over for years.

Saint Marty is hoping something beautiful will bloom soon.

New Poem

by: Martin Achatz

That's what I write on the top

of the page before I start

scribbling away, hoping

those two words

sound sweet enough

to attract a waltz of bees

or rave of hummingbirds.

July 31: The Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre, Happiness Poetry Workshop

Phouchg, a secondary character in the novel, is trying to find out the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (he already has the answer--42) . . .

"Well, you know, it's just Everything . . . everything . . ." offered Phouchg weakly.

"Exactly!" said Deep Thought.  "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means."

"Oh, terrific," muttered Phouchg, flinging aside his notebook and wiping away a tiny tear.

"Look, all right, all right," said Loonquawl, "can you just please tell us the question?"

"The Ultimate Question?"

"Yes!" 

"Of Life, the Universe and Everything?"

"Yes!"  

Deep Thought pondered for a moment.,

"Tricky," he said.

"But can you do it?" cried Loonquawl.

Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.

Finally:  "No," he said firmly.

Both men collapsed onto their chairs in despair.

"But I'll tell you who can," said Deep Thought.

They both looked up sharply.

"Who?  Tell us!"

Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently non-existent scalp  begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward toward the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording, he assumed.

"I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones.  "A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate--and yet I will design it for you.  A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix.  And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program!  Yes!  I shall design this computer for you.  And I shall name it also unto you.  And it shall be called . . . the Earth."

Phouchg gaped at Deep Thought.

"What a dull name," he said, and great incisions appeared down the length of his body.  Loonquawl too suddenly sustained horrific gashes from nowhere.  The computer console blotched and cracked, the walls flickered and crumbled and the room crashed upward into its own ceiling . . . 

Slartibartfast was standing in front of Arthur holding the two wires.

"End of the tape," he explained.  

And that, as they say, is the beginning of life on Earth as we know it.  At least in the Hitchhiker's fictional universe.

Of course, questions about the meaning of life have plagued the human race since the beginning of recorded time.  I'm sure that one night, millions of years ago, a neanderthal stood at the mouth of his cave, looked up at the full moon, and thought, "Mmmmmmrph groooowwwwllll oooooowwlll."  (He's a neanderthal.  What did you expect?  Jean-Paul Sartre?)

I, myself, have been wrestling with meaning a lot recently.  When dealing with struggles, particularly personal struggles, it's very easy to see meaninglessness in just about everything, from eating that piece of toast for breakfast to brushing your teeth at night before bed.  This past week, in particular, has been extremely challenging for me.

I find myself at the bottom of a very deep well.  I can see the mouth of the well above me, but there isn't anybody at the top to lower the bucket down.  How about another obscure metaphor?  I am adrift in the middle of the ocean, and my lifeboat is taking on water quickly.  One more for good measure?  I am the only Hillary supporter at a MAGA rally.

As a poet, I try to look for meaning in most of my life experiences.  I don't find a whole lot of meaning in what I'm going through at the moment.  It all seems like a big pile of steaming cow manure.  Of course, the poet Natalie Goldberg will tell you to to stir the compost, and, eventually, something beautiful will blossom.  It's inevitable.  Out of fertilizer comes life in some form.

Tomorrow night, I'm supposed to teach a poetry workshop.  August is National Happiness Happens month.  So I'm supposed to be leading the poets in attendance through writing prompts about happiness.  Let me tell you, this is going to be rough for me.  Happiness and I haven't been on speaking terms for a while. 

Now, before you skip off to another blog because you're tired of my depressing posts, let me tell you that I know happiness is all about attitude.  I can choose to be either joyful or sorrowful, regardless of the circumstances of my life.  I will admit that I have been wallowing quite a bit this evening.  Today, I have had one of the shittiest days of my life.  Ever.  I am not exaggerating.  Now, what do I do with that?

I will tell you what I'm going to do after I publish this post.  First, I'm going to finalize the plans for tomorrow night's happiness poetry workshop.  Then, I'm going to work on a manuscript that a friend asked me to edit for her.  And I'm going to remind myself, somehow, that God really is working in my life.  (God and I haven't been a speaking terms for a while, either.)

If you have any spare miracles, send them Saint Marty's way.  He's running a little short at the moment.  Look for the house with the leg lamp in the window.

February 3: Poetry Everywhere, Mondays, "Web" Dip

I have been thinking poetry all day long.  I teach my poetry workshop tonight, and I've been putting together handouts, writing drafts of poems, and finalizing my plans.  Basically, I've been doing everything I love to do.  I would almost sacrifice an organ to get paid well for doing this on a full-time basis.  Not a necessary organ.  Maybe my gall bladder.  I've already given up my appendix.

I love these Mondays where I see occasions for poetry everywhere.  It's not that my life is different in any way today.  I still got up at 4 a.m.  I still worked eight hours at the medical office.  I'm still sitting in my office at the university, dutifully conducting my office hours, and, in a little less than an 50 minutes, I will head across campus to teach my Introduction to Film class.  That's all the same.

It's my attitude that's different today.  I'm looking for poetry, and when I do that, I usually find it.  I was even able to complete a draft of a poem this morning.  It's not a great draft.  More like a really shitty, less-than-first draft.  But I will share it tonight with the members of my poetry workshop.  They need to know:  it's OK to write crap, as poet Natalie Goldberg says in Writing Down the Bones.

I do have a question for the little spider this afternoon:

Will my poetry workshop go well tonight?

And I'm looking up at Charlotte's web in the corner, and it says:

Everyone rejoiced to find that the miracle of the web had been repeated...

Yes, that says it all.


Saint Marty is going to have a miraculous night.

Breathe it in

January 26: Coming Through the Rye, Natalie Goldberg, "Writing Down the Bones," New Cartoon

It wasn't as cold as it was the day before, but the sun still wasn't out, and it wasn't too nice for walking.  But there was one nice thing.  This family that you could tell just came out of some church were walking right in front of me--a father, a mother, and a little kid about six years old.  They looked sort of poor.  The father had on one of those pearl-gray hats that poor guys wear a lot when they want to look sharp.  He and his wife were just walking along, talking, not paying any attention to their kid.  The kid was swell.  He was walking in the street, instead of on the sidewalk, but right next to the curb.  He was making out like he was walking a very straight line, the way kids do, and the whole time he kept singing and humming.  I got up closer so I could hear what he was singing.  He was singing that song, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye."  He had a pretty little voice, too.  He was just singing for the hell of it, you could tell.  The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye."  It made me feel better.  It made me feel not so depressed any more.

Obviously, the above paragraph is one of the key moments in Catcher in the Rye.  Holden is still wandering the streets of New York, alone and depressed, when he happens upon this family.  The father and mother are oblivious to their child, too absorbed in their adult conversation and lives.  The child, left to his own devices, has created a game for himself, walking along and singing.  Holden, I think, identifies with the boy.  There's a lightness in this passage, a happiness, that isn't present in the rest of the novel.  For a few moments, watching this child, Holden forgets his problems.  He forgets Allie and Jane.  He forgets his own distant parents.  He forgets being kicked out of school.  He just follows the boy through the rye.


We all need such moments in our lives.  Moments when all the worries and frustrations of the world fall away.  They are difficult to come by, especially for adults.  The key is finding the boy in the rye to follow.  For me, that boy is writing.  When I'm writing, and it's going well, I feel like that little boy in the above passage, strolling along the street, humming in the cold December sunlight.

I'm not saying writing is always like that for me.  Sometimes, the act of writing can be an exercise in frustration.  I can sit, staring at an empty journal page or computer screen, unable to string two words together.  At those moments, I'm a little more like the other side of Holden, depressed, frustrated, angry.

Writer/poet Natalie Goldberg wrote a book for those kinds of writing moments.  Writing Down the Bones, published in 1986, contains tiny chapters of writing advice from Goldberg.  With titles like "Beginners Mind, Pen, and Paper" and "The Power of Detail" and "Spontaneous Writing Booths," these chapters are designed for fledgling and experienced writers alike.  I first encountered Bones in the late 1980s, and I have returned to it again and again over the years when I need to be reminded why I decided to become a writer.

One of my favorite passages from the book comes from a chapter titled "Man Eats Car."  In it, Goldberg discusses the creation and use of metaphor.  As a poet, I sometimes get wound up in ideas for poems.  I decide I want to write a specific poem about an important subject, like gun violence or poverty or spiritual loneliness.  Then I get stuck, looking for an image or metaphor to hang this huge idea on.  Here's what Goldberg says:

But don't worry about metaphors.  Don't think, "I have to write metaphors to sound literary."  First of all, don't be literary.  Metaphors cannot be forced.  If all of you does not believe that the elephant and the ant are one at the moment you write it, it will sound false.  If all of you does believe it, there are some who might consider you crazy; but it's better to be crazy than false.  But how do you make your mind believe it and write metaphor?

Don't "make" your mind do anything.  Simply step out of the way and record your thoughts as they roll through you.  Writing practice softens the heart and mind, helps to keep us flexible so that rigid distinctions between apples and milk, tigers and celery, disappear.  We can step through moons right into bears.  You will take leaps naturally if you follow your thoughts, because the mind spontaneously takes great leaps.  You know.  Have you ever been able to just stay with one thought for very long.  Another one arises.

I find something very freeing in those paragraphs.  Goldberg gives me permission to wander through the rye in any direction, enjoying whatever I encounter, whether it's a homeless woman looking for a cup of coffee or a baby rabbit in a snowstorm.  She tells you to trust yourself.  The ideas will come.


That's what Writing Down the Bones is all about.  Trusting yourself.  Trusting that, if you sit down with a pen and paper, if you just write, you will find the image or metaphor or idea you need.  You will find your catcher in the rye.

For Saint Marty, Natalie Goldberg is his catcher in the rye today.

Confessions of Saint Marty