October 12: Daughter's Chorus Concert, Clint Margrave, "Recap of Yesterday's Tenure-Track Job Interview in English"

I am missing my daughter's chorus concert this evening because I have to teach.  If I had tenure (translation:  job security/wasn't a contingent professor), I would be tempted to cancel tonight's class.  That is not an option.  So, instead, I am going to stop at Walmart on my way home and buy her some flowers.

That's one of the most difficult things about being a contingent professor--the constant worry about job performance and evaluation.  If I really mess up one semester, I will not get a contract for the next semester.  Period.  So I don't cancel class.  Ever.  Even on those Upper Peninsula days when the wind is howling at 50 miles per hour and the snow is coming down thick and sideways, I still show up, ready to teach.  Because that's what contingents do.

I'm not complaining.  I have chosen this life, this position.  I love what I do.  However, sometimes, I dream of something a little better.  That's what tonight's poem from Rattle is all about:  dreaming of something better.

Now, if you will excuse Saint Marty, he has to start writing his Nobel Prize lecture.

Recap of Yesterday's Tenure-Track
Job Interview in English

by:  Clint Margrave

They asked me for an adjective
to describe myself as a teacher
and I gave them a noun.

They asked me to roleplay
a situation in which I told a student
she would need to retake the class
and I ended up giving
her a second chance.

Then I asked if the water bottle
provided for me
had vodka in it.

Then I referred to the hiring committee
which consisted entirely of women
as "you guys."

January 28: Headline Poems, Lynne Knight, "On Hearing of Robin Williams' Diagnosis"

The poetry magazine Rattle does something remarkable every week.  It's a poetic challenge, really.  It's pretty simple:  write a poem based on a story from the week's news.  It can be something global or national or local.  Anything taken from the headlines.

The challenge is an attempt to make poetry seem relevant to a society that has grown up with the Internet and texts and tweets.  A society that feeds on instant information.  The moment something happens.  Poetry used to be important, dangerous even.  World leaders feared poets because poets turned a spotlight on injustice and cruelty and disaster.

Yes, poetry used to be a conduit of truth.

That's why Saint Marty loves these poems from Rattle.  They speak of something deep and raw.

On Hearing of Robin Williams' Diagnosis

by:  Lynne Knight

My mother had Lewy body dementia, too, a late

diagnosis. Eight years of losing all trace

of herself, like someone following her shadow

into a forest that got deeper and deeper

until it became what Thoreau called

standing night. Her name was Knight,

so sometimes I would think of her as

Standing Night, her shadow lost altogether

by then. Her words, her understanding.

So when I heard that Robin Williams

had the same ruinous disease, I thought

what a generous thing he had done,

what a courageous thing, without the help

of drugs or alcohol or anyone, not wanting

to implicate anyone in his death in a state

where assisted suicide is forbidden.

I thought if there were an afterworld

where the soul is restored to its original

form, my mother would find her way

to Robin Williams and tell him he’d done

the right thing, the thing she would have done

if she’d known all she had coming.

But I don’t believe the soul continues.

The spirit lives on in the hearts of others,

so Robin Williams will live as close

as it gets to forever. As for my mother,

she’d be content to know how much

my sister and I miss her, how we still

talk to her, how we rely on her wisdom

to stand us by on darkest nights.

June 7: Make-Up Post, Tim Craven, "Neuroanatomy Practical"

I owe you guys a couple make-up posts.  I didn't blog last night.  A few things happened at the end of the day.  My sister fell down and broke her wrist.  My niece graduated from high school.  And I went on a date with my wife.

I realize that my last few posts have been, to say the least, less than uplifting.  I apologize for that.  This week has been a little difficult, and I'm having trouble regaining my balance.  Therefore, I also took last night off in order to get my bearings.

It didn't work.  I'm still pissed.

However, I have a really good poem to share with you.  It was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of Rattle magazine.  I read it this afternoon, and it made me happy.

Saint Marty needs more happy.

Neuroanatomy Practical

by:  Tim Craven

Smaller that you thought.
More like your idea of a dog's.
You cup it softly.  Your thumb fidgets
over the fissure of a temporal lobe. 
You lift it up to the side of your head
and imagine your own, sitting in there--
firing, immortal.
If you were to lob it against the wall,
would it crumble or shatter
or liquefy or combust or bounce 
back into your hands, intact?
When she (sixty-six, Caucasian, lymphoma)
donated it to science, was this the promised
research?  You consider biting into it
as you would a peach--and, were it not
for the toxic preservative, you might.
In ten years' time you will think
what a privilege it was to hold that brain,
brim-filled with tomato soup recipes and original sin
and smells of late summer and oboe lessons
and self-taught Italian and the night sky:
The Plough, The Bear, The Big Dipper.

Star light, star bright...

June 5: An Act of Faith, "Rattle," Leonard Orr Poem

“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” 

E. B. White said that.  He viewed writing as something almost holy.  Writing for him was an act full of hope.  A writer tries to make the world a better place, letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence.  Faith is a belief in something better.

Now, if you read my posts from yesterday, you are well aware of the fact that my faith, at the moment, is at a low ebb.  Yet, I sit down at my laptop this evening and write.  Perhaps I can exorcise my negative feelings by composing this post.  I doubt, but I suppose it's worth a try.  I guess that, in itself, is an act of faith.

I'm supposed to write about what's in my book bag this evening.  Well, for the last week, I've been lugging around the Spring 2014 issue of Rattle, a poetry journal.  The entire issue is devoted to love poems, and the work contained in its pages is uplifting, depressing, disturbing, but always beautiful.

This morning I found a poem by Leonard Orr that really touched the raw edges of my waning faith.  I want to share it with you, because I want to return to a place of hope and happiness.  Leonard Orr did that for me for a few moments this morning.

Saint Marty was grateful.

Optimist

by:  Leonard Orr, first published in Rattle, Spring 2014

Each time I vote, I pretend that this time
everything I hope for will take place, that
not only will everyone I vote for win,
but they will turn out more liberal than anyone
expected, that the evil half of the Supreme Court
will take a powder, wars will end, oil will die.
Every night, I visit your side of the bed
to pretend that you are just away for a moment,
it is warm from you and you will rush back to
place your head back on the pillow beside mine,
my nose nuzzling into your hair, to breathe you in,
my arms around you while you push sleepily
back into me, surrounded by my heat,
not fully waking by your brief absence,
and for some minutes I am whole again.

The eternal optimist