May 25, 2025: "Looking at Them Asleep," Nephew, "Last Advice to the High School Graduate"

It is the time of year for change.  The trees are greening, and the lawn mowers are droning.  The days a stretching out, and fewer and fewer nights involve frost.  Pretty soon, the last bells of the schoolyear will be ringing, and kids will be set free for a few months to work at McDonald's, try to score beer outside party stores, and start preparing for college.  And it's time for parents to let go.

Sharon Olds writes about her kids . . . 

Looking at Them Asleep

by: Sharon Olds

When I come home late at night and go in to kiss them,
I see my girl with her arm curled around her head,
her mouth a little puffed, like one sated, but
slightly pouted like one who hasn't had enough,
her eyes so closed you would think they have rolled the
iris around to face the back of her head,
the eyeball marble-naked under that
thick satisfied desiring lid,
she lies on her back in abandon and sealed completion,
and the son in his room, oh the son he is sideways in his bed,
one knee up as if he is climbing
sharp stairs, up into the night,
and under his thin quivering eyelids you
know his eyes are wide open and
staring and glazed, the blue in them so
anxious and crystally in all this darkness, and his
mouth is open, he is breathing hard from the climb
and panting a bit, his brow is crumpled
and pale, his fine fingers curved,
his hand open, and in the center of each hand
the dry dirty boyish palm
resting like a cookie. I look at him in his
quest, the thin muscles of his arms
passionate and tense, I look at her with her
face like the face of a snake who has swallowed a deer,
content, content--and I know if I wake her she'll
smile and turn her face toward me though
half asleep and open her eyes and I
know if I wake him he'll jerk and say Don't and sit
up and stare about him in blue
unrecognition, oh my Lord how I
know these two. When love comes to me and says
What do you know, I say This girl, this boy.

Olds knows her kids, each and every hair on their heads and nail on their fingers.  That's what parents do.  They spend 17 or 18 or 19 years teaching their children how to fly, and then they open the window and watch them wing away.

My daughter will be leaving in July for medical school.  Haven't really wrapped my mind around that fast-approaching cleaving.  This weekend, my nephew graduated from high school.  I attended his ceremony on Friday, and this evening I went to his graduation party.  

It's an exciting time for young people--on the cusp of their first real tastes of adulthood.  I could see it in my nephew's eyes.  They were full of joy and excitement and hope.  That's the way it should be.  Same with my daughter.  Both of them are gazing into the future, while we parents are mourning the little boy who loved playing Angry Birds and the little girl who fell asleep to Frosty the Snowman every afternoon.  

I wish I had enough money to fund both my daughter's and nephew's educations.  I would at the drop of a hat.  (For my international disciples, I should explain that, in the United States, students have to pay to go to college.  I know, I know.  It's messed up.)  Unfortunately, poets don't make a whole lot of money, unless a Pulitzer Prize is involved, so the best I can do is offer love, support, and words.

I have no doubt my nephew and daughter are going to change the world.  They're kind and intelligent and funny.  As Olds says, I know this girl, this boy.  And I couldn't be prouder.

Saint Marty took a day off from The Daily Poet to rite this poem for his nephew . . . 

Last Advice to the
          High School Graduate

by: Martin Achatz

for Caden, May 23, 2025

I know you’re tired of all the advice:
live in the moment, choose kindness,
measure success by the number of people
who love you, follow the path that’s
overgrown and rocky. You’re weary
of all those clichés from us oldsters
who will gladly show you our scars,
name them like willful kids or
monuments on a Civil War battlefield.

Instead, I want to tell you this morning
I found a rabbit in my backyard. His black
eyes panicked, he dragged himself
over the grass, hind legs useless
as driftwood. Perhaps he was dropped
there by a hungry owl after biting
and clawing and screaming, his spine
splintered by the fist of the ground.
I wanted to help mend his broken body, 

watch him bound away into the lilac bushes.
Sometimes, though, beautiful things cannot
be fixed, and all we can do is give thanks
that we have hearts that can be broken
by suffering and tongues to sing something
sacred and tender about this fragile world
you now hold in the palm of your hand.

April 10: "ENG 243: The History of Egotism," Accomplished People, Nobel Prize in Literature

Billy Collins gives a lesson on humility . . . 

ENG 243:  The History of Egotism

by:  Billy Colins

You will notice, class,

that Wordsworth did not write

"Edward, the butcher's son,

wandered lonely as a cloud."

I'm not a big fan of ego.  In fact, I find any person who suffers from an acute case of egotism kind of dull and annoying.  Unless you have a Nobel Prize or Oscar sitting on your bookshelf, don't try to impress me.  It ain't gonna work.

I deal with a lot of artists in my job at the library.  Musicians and writers and actors.  I've had conversations with two U. S. Poets Laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner.  In New York once, I had a close encounter with Alex Baldwin.  I've taken a writing workshop with a novelist who won the National Book Award.  One of classmates from graduate school is a New York Times bestselling author. 

In my experience, very accomplished people don't have to brag about their achievements.  They don't want to be treated like celebrities or gods.  They crave normalcy, not adulation.  Sure, there are perks to a certain amount of celebrity--trips and money (sometimes) and kind words.  But there are also downsides--loss of privacy and constant scrutiny and the need to prove yourself (over and over and over).

I come from a family background that didn't really encourage pride.  Hard work was the name of the game.  If that hard work paid out in money or a certain amount of recognition, all the better.  However, I've never sought praise or attention.  Those things make me feel . . . uncomfortable, and I will often redirect the conversation or situation (when I can) if I find myself in the spotlight.

Don't get me wrong--I won't turn down a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award or Nobel Prize.  (Heck, I won't turn down a free order of French fries from McDonald's).  But, given a choice, I will take my dog for a walk rather than talk about myself on TV or radio.

If, next October, Saint Marty gets a phone call from the Swedish Academy, naming him the first blogger/poet to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, you will probably find him on some trail in the woods, thanking the trees for their shade.

May 26: "The Orchard," Memorial Day Weekend, Ambition

Mary Oliver on apples and time and ambition . . . 

The Orchard

by:  Mary Oliver

I have dreamed

of accomplishment.

I have fed

ambition.

I have traded

nights of sleep

for a length of work.

Lo, and I have discovered

how soft bloom

turns to green fruit

which turns to sweet fruit.

Lo, and I have discovered

all winds blow cold

at last,

and the leaves,

so pretty, so many,

vanish

in the great, black

packet of time,

in the great, black

packet of ambition,

and the ripeness

of the apple

is its downfall.

This season is all about accomplishment, time, and ambition.  Young people graduate from grade school to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to college, and college to whatever awaits.  Outside, the trees graduate from bare to green, and everything begins to open and become sweet.  You can taste ripeness with every deep breath.

It is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, which, in the United States anyway, marks the beginning of the summer season.  For my international disciples, Memorial Day celebrates and honors members of the armed forces who sacrificed their lives in battle.  It's a national holiday in the U.S., although the majority of people overlook or forget its true significance.

I always find this weekend a little melancholy, because it's wrapped up so much in farewells and closing doors and remembrances.  Many tears are shed this time of year.  Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but I can't help it.  I'm a poet and spend a good deal of my time reflecting on shit like this.  

This afternoon, I screened Steven Spielberg's film The Fabelmans at the library where I work.  I first watched this movie in January of this year, when I was stuck at home with COVID.  It's a beautiful piece of art.  Sort of a love letter to cinema and family and growing up and pursuing your dreams.  In short, a perfect celluloid metaphor for what I'm talking about tonight.

Having ambition is a good thing.  Accomplishments are wonderful.  In the larger picture, however, they are also very temporary.  When I graduated from high school, I was voted "Most Likely to Succeed," but nobody defined that success.  When I stepped outside that high school auditorium in my cap and gown, I wanted to be a bestselling author.  Pulitzer Prize winner.  Nobel laureate.  People Magazine's Sexiest Writer Alive.  That was the definition of success.  (By the way, I would have settled for the Pulitzer and the Nobel.)

Tonight, I sit here on the cusp of another summer, and success looks very different to me.  Making enough money to pay all my bills.  Having healthy, happy children.  Writing a new poem every now and then.  Finishing this blog post tonight.  Feeling happy.  Laughing a lot.  That's all success.

As I've gotten older, my ambitions have just become more . . . realistic.  As Oliver says, the riper the apple, the sooner its downfall.  I don't think my apple is ready to fall just yet.  I have a few more things to learn, a little fuel left in my tank.  Every once in a while, I still write something that's not terrible, and eventually I'd like to finish reading Finnegans Wake (although that may be shooting too high).

So, if anybody from the Swedish Academy or Nobel Foundation is reading this blog post, Saint Marty is alive and kicking and waiting for that phone call.

February 24: More Noble and More Able, Big Goals, "Just Before Poetry Workshop"

Santiago versus the fish . . . 

"He is two feet longer than the skiff," the old man said. The line was going out fast but steadily and the fish was not panicked. The old man was trying with both hands to keep the line just inside of breaking strength. He knew that if he could not slow the fish with a steady pressure the fish could take out all the line and break it.

He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.

Santiago, finally seeing what he is up against, knows that the fish could win the battle simply because of its size and strength.  Yet, Santiago has experience and brains on his side.  So, in a way, the narrative is a David and Goliath story, with Santiago in his little boat on a vast, unfriendly ocean.

I've gone after some big fish in my time.  Set myself big goals and tried to accomplish them.  Sometimes, I succeeded (I'm a published writer).  Other times, I've come up short (I still haven't won my Pulitzer Prize).  A person has two choices.  First, to celebrate the victories and be happy.  Second, to wallow in the failures and be miserable.

I do both of these things, depending on the day.

Tonight, I attended a poetry workshop led by a good friend of mine.  The theme of the night was "brevity."  Every piece that we wrote had to be 100 words or less.  This condition was a struggle for me.  My poems tend to be expansive and multi-layered.  I don't write short poems.

However, I did it.  I'm not sure I landed any big fish this evening.  (The whole point of the workshop was landing small fish.)  But I tried.  Perhaps, this time, success is in the attempt, not the product.

Saint Marty is still holding out for his Nobel.

A poem for the Swedish Academy to consider . . . 

Just Before Poetry Workshop

by:  Martin Achatz

I wake from a nap,

hungry but too lazy

to even heat up

leftover pizza.  Instead,

I fill a bowl with pretzels,

find some cheddar cheese

sticks in the fridge, sit

on my couch, grab

a pen, my journal.

Sometimes, poetry tastes

like a Dorito found

under a sofa cushion.

May 20-21: My Selfishness, But Maybe, Possibility

Merton talks about his shortcomings . . . 

It is true I was called to the cloister. That has been made abundantly clear. But the dispositions with which I was now preparing to enter the Franciscan novitiate were much more imperfect than I was able to realize. In choosing the Franciscans, I had followed what was apparently a perfectly legitimate attraction—an attraction which might very well have been a sign of God’s will, even though it was not quite as supernatural as I thought. I had chosen this Order because I thought I would be able to keep its Rule without difficulty, and because I was attracted by the life of teaching and writing which it would offer me, and much more by the surroundings in which I saw I would probably live. God very often accepts dispositions that are no better than these, and even some that are far worse, and turns them into a true vocation in His own time. 

But with me, it was not to be so. I had to be led by a way that I could not understand, and I had to follow a path that was beyond my own choosing. God did not want anything of my natural tastes and fancies and selections until they had been more completely divorced from their old track, their old habits, and directed to Himself, by His own working. My natural choice, my own taste in selecting a mode of life, was altogether untrustworthy. And already my selfishness was asserting itself, and claiming this whole vocation for itself, by investing the future with all kinds of natural pleasures and satisfactions which would fortify and defend my ego against the troubles and worries of life in the world. 

Besides, I was depending almost entirely on my own powers and on my own virtues—as if I had any!—to become a good religious, and to live up to my obligations in the monastery. God does not want that. He does not ask us to leave the world as a favor to Himself.

Ego gets in the way of everything--marriages, friendships, educations.  And, as Merton points out in this passage, ego even gets in the way of God.  Merton has not let go of his own aspirations and dreams.  In a way, he's using God as a shield to "fortify and defend [his] ego against" the slings and arrows of the universe.  He hasn't reached the point of total surrender to God's will.

I pride myself in the teaching I do for the university, the work I do for the library.  I'm not exactly sure if this is ego or simply the work ethic that my parents instilled in me at a very young age.  My dad was a plumber, going out on service calls at all hours of the day and night, for close to 60 years.  My mom was right there beside him, doing the bookwork, paying the bills, making the dinners.  They went to church every weekend, dropped an envelope in the collection plate each time.  They did all this because it was the right thing to do.  Not because they were trying to win a trophy or title.  Thirty years from now, nobody will even remember my parents' names, except their kids and maybe their grandkids.  

I often joke on this blog about winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry or the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Writing a bestselling poetry collection (if there is such a thing).  I am kidding, of course.  I know that the chance of my name being spoken in the halls of the Swedish Academy is about as likely as Bigfoot knocking on my door tonight and coming inside for a nightcap.  However, that doesn't stop me from engaging in a little fantasy.  

Is this ego?  Perhaps.  I make these jokes, fully aware that there is a small, niggling voice in the back of my mind whispering, "Yes, but maybe . . ."

Bigfoot is sitting in my living room tonight, sipping a glass of blueberry wine.  He's good company on late nights.  His hairy presence is a reminder that belief in impossible things is half the battle.  There are people out there who've devoted their lives to hunting my hominid houseguest.  Make their livings off his image.  He is as real as wonder and mystery to them.  

I don't want to live in a world where Bigfoot doesn't roam the Pacific Northwest of the imagination.  Where the Nobel Prize doesn't get awarded to a blogger.  Maybe that's ego with size 54 feet, stomping through my backyard.  Or maybe it's just my stubborn belief that the universe is a more interesting place with constellations of possibility in the heavens.  I think that's what kept my kept my father and mother going all those years.

Saint Marty gives thanks for stargazing with Bigfoot tonight.

April 18: Pulitzer Prize, Frank Bidart, "Poem Ending with a Sentence by Heath Ledger"

Poem Ending with a Sentence by Heath Ledger

by:  Frank Bidart

Each grinding flattened American vowel smashed to

centerlessness, his glee that whatever long ago mutilated his

mouth, he has mastered to mutilate

you: the Joker's voice, so unlike

the bruised, withheld, wounded voice of Ennis Del Mar.

Once I have the voice

that's

the line

and at

the end

of the line

is a hook

and attached

to that

is the soul.

_________________________

Frank Bidart won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry a couple days ago for his collection Half-Light:  Collected Poems 1965 - 2016.  I have always admired Bidart's work, although I have not always fully understood it.  But you don't have to completely understand a poem to fall under its spell.  That's what I would say Bidart does with his poems:  he casts spells, gives voice to the voiceless (as he does for Heath Ledger above).

Tonight, I celebrate Frank Bidart is all his confoundingness.  Yes, I made up that word to describe his poems.  It's a good word.  A word, I think, Bidart would appreciate.  He is amazing and beautiful, the way a complex math problem is amazing and beautiful, with all it's variables and logarithms and sines. 

Saint Marty minored in math, in case you didn't know.

January 3: New Year's Resolutions, Li-Young Lee, "Eating Together"

I gave up on New Year's resolutions quite a while ago.  I learned that resolving on January 1st to lose weight or publish more or declutter my house wasn't going to make me look like Brad Pitt or win me a Pulitzer Prize or allow me to live in a Better Homes and Gardens mansion.  Nope, New Year's resolutions are, basically, set-ups for failure.

Instead, on December 31st, I always say the same thing to myself:  "I have a beautiful family, good health, a roof over my head, food in the fridge, a couple decent jobs, and good friends.  I'm going to try to keep it that way."

Yesterday, I went out to lunch with my family.  We ate together.  Laughed together.  Last night, I got together with some poet friends.  We talked about writing.  Shared some of our work.  Ate together.  Laughter together.  Hugged each other.

Saint Marty's year is off to a pretty good start.

Eating Together

by:  Li-Young Lee

In the steamer is the trout   

seasoned with slivers of ginger,

two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.   

We shall eat it with rice for lunch,   

brothers, sister, my mother who will   

taste the sweetest meat of the head,   

holding it between her fingers   

deftly, the way my father did   

weeks ago. Then he lay down   

to sleep like a snow-covered road   

winding through pines older than him,   

without any travelers, and lonely for no one.

September 30: Halfway Point, Saeed Jones, "The Blue Dress"

I am at a point in my life right now that I have to admit something:  I have passed the halfway point of my existence on this planet.  I probably passed it a while ago.

That thought is a little sobering.  I've been thinking about the things I have done and the things I still want to do in the time I have left.  I have had, for the most part, a really good life.  Loving but crazy family.  Beautiful wife and kids.  I've done theater.  Taught thousands of kids about writing and literature.  I'm a published writer.  Poetry and essays and fiction.  And I have fantastic friends.

Don't get me wrong.  I've had my struggles and dark times.  Still do.  And there are things I still want to do.  I want to publish more books.  Want to travel to Rome and England.  Want to go back to New York to see some plays.  Want ONE job that allows me to write and teach and write some more.  Want to win the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize.  Want to see Donald Trump impeached or resign.

Yes, as I approach Saint Marty's Day this year, I'm feeling a little nostalgia, for my childhood and mother and babies and President Obama.  I miss the hope I had in my youth, when I thought I could own the world.  I now know that I can't own the world.  But I can try to make the world a little bit better.

That's something Saint Marty can do with his remaining years.

The Blue Dress

by:  Saeed Jones

Her blue dress is a silk train is a river
is water seeps into the cobblestone streets of my sleep, is still 
          raining
is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles
is good-bye in a flooded, antique room, is good-bye in a room of 
          crystal bowls
and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the 
          mouths
of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi River is a 
          hallway, is leaks
like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open 
          to waterfalls
is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a current come to carry me in its 
          arms
through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets
is only the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a 
          blue dress
out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea.

August 31: Millions of Things, War or Fame or Fortune, Hope

He was taken to a small private hospital.  A famous brain surgeon came up from Boston and operated on him for three hours.  Billy was unconscious for two days after that, and he dreamed millions of things, some of them true.  The true things were time travel.

Billy is dreaming and not dreaming after the plane crash.  Sometimes the things he dreams are dreams.  Sometimes, they are true.  These dreams--real and imagined--keep Billy alive.

I have dreams.  Lots of them.  Everyone does, unless you're clinically depressed or near death.  My sister who died of brain lymphoma dreamed of getting better, going home.  My father, who's currently in a hospital downstate, probably has the same dreams.

My dreams are small and large.  I dream of finishing this post, of having ice cream after dinner.  I also dream of some literary agent discovering this blog and offering me a book contract.  I've dreamed of a full time job at the university.  A house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.  A vacation to Hawaii or Costa Rica.  Winning the Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Dreams keep me moving.  They push me out of bed in the morning.  They make me go to work.  They bring me home at night.  It's not that I'm miserable in my life.  I'm not Walter Mitty, constantly dreaming and imagining myself into fantasies of war or fame or fortune. 

No, I equate dreams with hope, and hope is what helps people survive hurricanes and floods.  Bad elections and bad presidents.  Bad jobs and bad health.  Hope is what all the major religions of the world are about.  Hope is what motivates scientists to search for cures to cancer and diabetes and Alzheimer's.

Tonight, Saint Marty is hoping to work on a new poem.

October 19: Run a Universe, Pulitzer Prize, Sorry Bob

Is it a better way to run a universe?

Dillard is talking about evolution and death.  How the survival of the planet sort of depends upon death in some way.  As she says at another point in her discussion, "Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me."  Eventually, all of us will cease to exist.  That is a 100% certainty.  Yet, ironically, death will go on, claiming species, taking the weak, leaving the strong.  That's the way God set up the universe.

So, let me talk about how I would run the universe (or at least my little portion of the universe).  First, I would have a tenured teaching position at a university.  Most of my days would be spent writing.  You see, my first collection of poetry would have won the Pulitzer Prize, which would have immediately catapulted me into a full professorship, do not pass "Go," or associate and assistant professorship.

My second book of poems would also have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, making me the youngest and hottest poet in the country.  Harvard and Cambridge and Oxford would have come knocking on my door.  But I would have humbly demurred, preferring the rural life of the Upper Peninsula.

I would teach in the fall semester, only classes of hand-picked poetry students who had to submit samples of their writings in order to be selected for a position in my writing workshop.  In the winter semester, the university would pay me to simply work on my writing, perhaps giving a few lectures at the United Nations and the Library of Congress.

Speaking of the Library of Congress, I would have already served twice as the Poet Laureate of the United States.  I would have been offered the position as a lifetime appointment, but, again, I would have demurred because of my humility.

And, of course, I would have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature last week instead of Bob Dylan.  Unlike Dylan, I would have already granted interviews and accepted the Swedish Academy's invitation to attend the Nobel Week festivities in early December.

Wouldn't the universe be a better place with Saint Marty in charge?

Sorry, Bob, there's a new sheriff in the universe.

July 1: Feathers to Lizard Scales, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Something Astounding

When I lose interest in a given bird, I try to renew it by looking at the bird in either of two ways.  I imagine neutrinos passing through its feathers and into its heart and lungs, or I reverse its evolution and imagine it as a lizard.  I see its scaled legs and that naked ring around a shiny eye; I shrink and deplume its feathers to lizard scales, unhorn its lipless mouth, and set it stalking dragonflies, cool-eyed, under a palmetto.  Then I reverse the process once again, quickly; its forelegs unfurl, its scales hatch feathers and soften.  It takes to the air seeking cool forests; it sings songs.  This is what I have on my chimney; it might as well keep me awake out of wonder as rage.

Annie Dillard tries to live in wonder, all the time.  I think that she worries if she starts feeling comfortable with her surroundings, when weather retreats to the background and birdsong becomes white noise.  She forces herself to revise the way she looks at the world.  Makes everything strange and unnatural.  She turns birds into lizards and back again.

I find myself often falling into complacency about my life.  That happens because I am a creature of habit.  In my life, I'm not a fan of surprises.  When I get up in the morning, I need everything planned out.  Pretty much, I know what I'm going to be doing every day of the week.  For example, tomorrow morning, I will be going to the McDonald's in town for breakfast with my wife, son, and sister.  We will stay there for a couple hours.  Then, in the afternoon, I will do some house cleaning, and pick out some music to play at church tomorrow night.  I will go to church, play the pipe organ.  For dinner, pizza with my family.  Then, in the evening, it may be more cleaning or simply reading/watching TV.

Most of my days are like this.  I know what will happen (or what I expect to happen) as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning.  No birds turning into lizards or Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal into Belgium waffles (although I wouldn't be opposed to the latter transformation).  If there are to be any deviations, I need to prepare myself for them.  I like to plan out my deviations so they simply become extensions of my normal day.

If this sounds like a boring way to live, I shall quote the husband of one of my best friends:  "There's nothing wrong with sameness."  I am not Annie Dillard.  I do not set out from my house in the morning looking for adventure.  When I set out from my house in the morning, I do not want to see the sun and moon dirty dancing in the sky.  Or a herd of buffalo charging down the street.  Or a whipped cream tornado.

I do accept mystery into my life.  I believe in miracles.  If I didn't, I don't think I could call myself a true follower of Christ.  There is always the possibility of something astounding, I know.  Last night, my friend John Smolens came to my house to talk about his new novel with my book club.  John has published nine novels in his career.  He's won awards, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  And whenever I see him, he treats me like an equal.  Talks about how much he loves my weird, Catholic poems.  That astounds me.  It makes me reevaluate myself for a little while.  I turn from a bird to a lizard.

For the moment, Saint Marty doesn't mind having scales.

It takes a lot of effort to deal with wonder . . .

June 15: Willy Wonka, Adonis, "The Beginning of Speech"

I often wonder what I would say to my younger self.  As a kid, I knew I wanted to be a writer.  Of course, I also wanted to be a movie director, Willy Wonka, and Doug Henning (don't laugh--he was a really cool magician).  However, the main dream has never changed.  Publish books.  Maybe win a prize here and there.  An occasional Pulitzer Prize.  I wouldn't turn down the Nobel, either.

I've published a book of poems.  I've been the poetry editor of a national literary journal.  I've been nominated for the Pushcart Prize a couple of times.  No Pulitzer.  No Nobel.  Yet.  I suppose, if I could say something to my younger self, it would be, "Watch out for skunks!"  (I have had a couple very close encounters with skunks that have cost me a good pair of running shoes and an expensive book bag.)

Saint Marty is still dreaming.

The Beginning of Speech

by:  Adonis

The child I was came to me

once,

a strange face

                He said nothing              We walked

each of us glancing at the other in silence, our steps

a strange river running in between

We were brought together by good manners

and these sheets now flying in the wind

then we split,

a forest written by earth

watered by the seasons’ change.

Child who once was, come forth—

What brings us together now,

and what do we have to say?

September 4: All the Things He Never Knew, Faith in God, Linda Gregg, "How It Works," Punny Fairy Tale, Adventures of Stickman

He [Ives] prayed, his eyes upon the painting of the Mother and Child near the altar.  He prayed for his dead adoptive father, and for his mother and father whom he had never known.  For all the things he never knew.

At the end of his life, Ives will never know his birth mother and father or why he was given up for adoption.  He will never understand why his son died at such a young age, or why he struggled with grief and anger for over three decades.  Ives will never understand why there is so much suffering in the world.  Yet, he prays for all of these unknowable things.  All the unanswerable questions of his life.  He gives them up to God.

I think that's one of the reasons I've been so angry these last couple of weeks.  I've been trying too hard to make sense of things that are senseless.  I see no reason behind my sister's death.  Or my brother's.  I don't understand why I've been teaching for the university for over 20 years and will probably never be offered a full-time position.  Why does my wife have bipolar disorder and sexual addiction?  Why haven't I won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry?  Why is Donald Trump running for President of the United States?

I will never know the answers to any of those questions.  Yet, I also believe that everything happens for a purpose.  I have to, because the idea of a completely random universe doesn't really work for me.  For instance, before my sister became very ill, I was forced to leave my job at the surgery center where she had been my boss for 17 years.  At the time, I was confused and angry.  I didn't get God's plan at all.  Now, I understand.  I would never have been able to continue in that job without my sister there.  It would simply have been too difficult.  That was not the molecules of my life bouncing around randomly.  It happened for a reason.

Yet, I will never have all the answers, no matter how hard I search for them.  That's where faith in God comes into play.  Faith is the answer to any unanswerable question.  I have had to rely on my faith quite a bit these last few weeks.  It's been difficult.  Really difficult.  And it continues to be difficult.  Like Ives, I have turned to prayer for all the unknowable things in my life, and that has helped.

Once upon a time, a woodsman named Figaro lived in Firwood Forest.  Figaro spent his days tracking stags and moose.  He was known as the greatest hunter in all of the kingdom.

One morning, Figaro saw a wild boar rooting in a patch of mushrooms.  Without pause, Figaro shot the boar with an arrow, killing it instantly.  He hauled the boar back to his cottage and slaughtered it.  That night, he roasted it over a roaring fire and feasted.

The next morning, Figaro awoke deathly ill.  For three days, he suffered in bed.  On the third day, Figaro died.

When Figaro got to heaven, he stood before God and asked Him, "Why did I have to die?"

God looked at Figaro and shrugged.  "I was boared."

Moral of the story:  Always cook pork to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

How It Works

by:  Linda Gregg

I will tell you a story about
how death works.  One year
when he was hunting,
my father lay down
by a cliff on the top
of a mountain.
As he lay there mostly asleep,
he heard a breathing
close to his face.
The breathing of a mountain
lion.  When he looked,
there was no lion.
When he rolled over
and looked down the ledge
he saw a great eagle
an arm-reach away
hovering over a huge space.

Adventures of STICKMAN

March 2: Poet of the Week, Rita Dove, "Saints"

DISCLAIMER:  This post was supposed to be published last night.

Rita Dove was the youngest person, and first African American, to be named United States Poet Laureate.  She has won the Pulitzer Prize and has received over 25 honorary doctorates.  In 2011, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts.  And now her crowning achievement:

Rita Dove is Saint Marty's Poet of the Week.

Saints

by:  Rita Dove

She used to pull them
from herself and count:
Have mercy, have mercy--
black-eyed peas flicked into a pot.

Why go out into the sunshine
and blustery azaleas, why leave
this overcrowded bed?
She's fat now, she stinks in warm weather.
She'll pin on a hat, groan into a pew,
spend the hour watching stained glass
swirl through Michael's boat
like holy water.

Between her knees, each had been
a neat hunger,
each one a freedom.
So many now, perishing under the rafters!
They are like the tin replicas of eyes and limbs
hung up in small churches,
meticulous
cages, medallions
swinging in the dazed air.

I'm a sucker for a poet who writes about saints

January 25: Shoveling Snow and Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

It is a little after 4 p.m.  I have spent the day preparing my home for the invasion of book lovers.  The members of my book club are showing up at 6:30 tonight to discuss Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.  A great book, probably headed for at least a Pulitzer Prize nomination this year.

So, Friday night I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed.  Last night, I swept and mopped the hardwood floors, and then I made a double batch of mini crescent weenies.  And, this afternoon, I shoveled my front yard and driveway.  (Split my pants in the process.  I took a spill in the street and felt the seams of my pants give way.  There was a brisk breeze blowing through my nether regions for the rest of the shoveling.) 

In a little while, I will heat up my weenies (please refrain from any crude jokes) and put out some plates and utensils.  It will be a good night with good friends.  A nice way to end the weekend.  And there will be plenty of good food to eat.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago.  I was teaching poetry to a group of second graders...

January 25, 2013:  My Best Subject, Second Graders, Poetry

...All I said was English was my best subject.

"Oh, really?  Oh, I'm so glad!" the one with the glasses, that taught English, said.  "What have you read this year?  I'd be very interested to know."  She really was.

Holden is speaking to a nun he has met in a restaurant.  The nun teaches English, and she strikes up a conversation with Holden about Romeo and Juliet.  Her enthusiasm reminds me of many of the middle and grade school teachers I've known.  They have unbridled enthusiasm for their students and subjects.  And they fill me with their enthusiasm.


This morning, I taught poetry to a class of second graders.  Their teacher, "Ms. Rita," was my daughter's kindergarten teacher.  I've been teaching poetry lessons to her classes ever since.  Six years in a row, and I've loved each time.  There's something very uninhibited about six- and seven-year-olds.  They are game for almost anything.  I've had Ms. Rita's students write poems about colors and animals and themselves and similes.

This year, I had them write found poems.  Basically, a found poem is a poem assembled from the lines and words of another source.  I did a poem based on Jack Prelutsky's work.  I did another based on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.  And I did a third one based on words I found on a package of Dove chocolates.  Then, the second graders had to "find" their own poems.

The class had just finished reading the story of the Gingerbread Man, so a lot of them chose that as a source.  It was fun and a little out-of-control.  We talked about chocolate and hippo chips and math.  And, after an hour, they sang me their "Thank You" song.  It was awesome.

Saint Marty wishes his college students were a little more like second graders, or maybe Saint Marty needs to be more like a nun.

I'm not sure this would be a good look for me

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 30: The New Yorker, Salaried Professional Writer, Dreams

Harold Ross, the founder of The New Yorker, literally begged E. B. White to join the staff of his fledgling magazine.  Ross begged for a couple of months.  Eventually, White relented:

Finally, in January 1927, Andy agreed to contribute new work every week and to show up every weekday, at least for a few hours, at a small office that was assigned to him.  In return Harold Ross agreed to pay him $30 per week.,  [White] had left Frank Seaman and was now working part-time at a different advertising agency, J. H. Newmark, where he earned the same amount.  Surely a frugal man could live on $60 a week, especially while still rooming with three others.  More important than the money, about which [White] had an almost cavalier attitude, was that at twenty-seven he had suddenly become a salaried professional writer.

E. B. White lucked out.  He got hired by The New Yorker before it became THE NEW YORKER, the magazine that every poet, writer, and essayist wanted to appear in.  Nowadays, most poets would sacrifice a limb to have even one poem published in its pages.  I, personally, would sacrifice a testicle to land a poem in The New Yorker.  White didn't have to make a blood offering.  He, almost literally, walked into a job as a staff writer/editor.

Of course, E. B. White did hang around New York for a few years before Harold Ross came knocking.  He published in various magazines and newspapers, and he dreamed of being the next Franklin Pierce Adams (F. P. A.) or Don Marquis.  He dreamed a lot, and he wrote a lot.

I think one of the requirements of being a writer is the ability to dream.  Almost every writer I know dreams of publishing in magazines like The New Yorker or landing a book on the bestseller lists.  Putting words on a page is an act of hope.  Hope that somebody will want to read it, publish it, give it a Pulitzer Prize.  Big dreams.

I've been dreaming writing dreams for a very long time.  I've published a book of poems.  I'm the poetry editor of an internationally respected literary magazine.  I've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  I've had some success, but I'm still dreaming.  The day that I stop dreaming is the day that I stop writing.

Saint Marty has a dream tonight that some major editor or literary agent will read this post, track him down, and offer him a contract for an obscene amount of money.  It might happen.

Dream a little dream...

April 30: Good News

I got some good news this afternoon.  All morning long, I graded exams, registered patients, answered phones, and tallied students' final semester point totals.  It was a long, long a.m.  I finally took a break around one o'clock to check my university e-mail.  There were several messages with subject lines like "Congrats" and "Hip hip hooray."  There was also a message from the English Department with the subject line "Contingent/Adjunct of the Year."

Yes, loyal disciples, I was chosen by the English Department as contingent faculty member of the year.  I know I've written about this topic in the past.  I've made fun of not winning before.  I've been sarcastic and angry.  However, this award wasn't even on my radar this time.  I was too wrapped up in doing my end-of-semester duties.  I was taken totally by surprise.

I'm sort of floating right now.  I'm happy and will probably remain happy for a few days.  I might even carry this happiness into the weekend.

I don't need a National Book Award.  Or a Pulitzer Prize.  Or the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Saint Marty is the friggin' contingent faculty member of the year.

I don't need no stinkin' Nobel

April 10: Big Glass Cases, Change, the Future

I'm going to use a passage from The Catcher in the Rye I've used before:

...Certain things they should stay the way they are.  You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.  I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway.  Anyway, I kept thinking about all that while I walked.

I love this passage because it captures one of my greatest fears/worries:  change.  Basically, Holden has as much a problem with change as I do.  The only constant in his life has been change.  He's seen his younger brother die.  His older brother moved to California.  He's been expelled from at least three schools that I can recall.  He's tired of change.  That's why he likes museums so much.  Everything is in big glass cases, and nothing changes.

Most people know I'm not a fan of change.  In fact, I would rank change right up there with root canal and colonoscopy.  It's a matter of comfort.  If life is calm and happy, why rock the boat by doing something stupid like taking up sky diving or switching jobs?  I could refine my position on change a little bit:  I welcome change if I am its catalyst.  If I sell my house and get a bigger house, I'd be fine because it's my choice.  If I'm offered a full-time position at the university, I'd say, "Where do I sign?"  These are things I've want.  Things I've actively pursued.

This morning, I went for a walk with a friend of mine who is a nurse.  We started talking about the recent take-over of our hospital by a large healthcare system.  The outpatient surgery center where we work is now owned by a national corporation.  And that national corporation is making big changes.  It's going to take our little family of coworkers and transform it into a huge outpatient surgical facility.  In a couple of years, we're not even going recognize each other, let alone where we work.  Big changes.

As we were walking, I could feel my stomach tensing into a hornet's nest.  Even the thought of change has a physical reaction in my body.  By the end, I had a headache and a serious case of diarrhea.

I know that, like shit, change happens.  There's no way to avoid it.  The future is one big black question mark, and it gives me hives.  Of course, my hope is to have a full-time teaching position at the university before construction is complete on the new surgery center.  That's my hope.

Saint Marty keeps that hope in a big glass case in his Museum of Things to Come, right next to his Pulitzer Prize for poetry and Nobel Prize for Literature.

I would not pay to get into this place

March 22: Rita Dove and "Your Death," Poem

Today, I have a poem for you by Rita Dove.  Dove was the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  She was also the first African American to hold the position of U. S. Poet Laureate, from 1993 to 1995.  She did that at the age of 40.  Her vita reads like a history lesson of firsts for African Americans and women.

Saint Marty hopes you enjoy the following poem from Dove's 1989 collection Grace Notes.

Your Death

On the day that will always belong to you,
lunar clockwork had faltered
and I was certain.  Walking
the streets of Manhattan I thought:
Remember this day.  I felt already
like an urn, filling with wine.

To celebrate, your son and I
took a stroll through Bloomingdale's
where he developed a headache
among the copper skillets and
tiers of collapsible baskets.
Pain tracked us through
the china, driving us
finally to the subway
and home,

where the phone was ringing
with bad news.  Even now,
my new daughter
asleep in the crib, I can't shake
the moment his headache stopped
and the day changed ownership.
I felt robbed.  Even the first
bite of the tuna fish sandwich
I had bought at the corner
became yours.

Rita Dove and some other guy

July 25: Power of Positive Thinking

I read several devotionals every day.  Sometimes, the daily devotions speak to me, and sometimes they leave me pretty cold.  This morning, one of the devotions I read was about the power of positive thinking.  If I may sum up its message, it said that as long as you believe in something hard enough, or want something strongly enough, you will have success.  It's just the power of positive thinking.

I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment.  I have wanted to be a publishing writer since I can remember, and so far, I've only published a few poems in some literary journals and one collection of poetry.  I wouldn't necessarily label that a roaring success.  Years ago, I honestly believed, by the time I reached my current age, I would have published at least three or four books and won the National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize.  That, obviously, has not happened.  Yet.  Instead, I'm working two jobs to support my family.  I'm tired all the time, and money is a constant struggle.  So much for the power of positive thought.

Perhaps devotional writers should be a little more realistic.  Instead of saying you can achieve anything you want with positive thinking, devotional writers should provide more achievable goals like this:

Don't ever stop dreaming.  It is the dreams that keep you alive and moving.  If you don't have a dream, you won't have a goal.  If you don't have a goal, you won't want to get out of bed.  If you don't get out of bed, blood will pool in your leg.  If blood pools in your leg, you will develop a deep vein thrombosis.  If you develop a deep vein thrombosis, you will probably die.  So keep dreaming.

There's definite wisdom I can get behind in that little devotion.

So Saint Marty will keep dreaming.

Think positive:  I DO look like Goerge Clooney!