February 8, 2025: "The Line," Good and Bad News, "Bone Cold"

Sometimes news is good, and sometimes it's no so good.

When my cell phone rings at 11:37 p.m., I immediately think, "Who died?"  I don't expect good news at that time of the night.  On the other hand, if the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy calls my in early October, I can be fairly confident I'll be receiving good news.

Sharon Olds deals with possibly bad news . . . 

The Line

by: Sharon Olds

When we understood it might be cancer,
I lay down beside you in the night,
my palm resting in the groove of your chest,
the rachis of a leaf. There was no question of
making love: deep inside my body that
small hard lump. In the half-light
of my half-life, my hand in the beautiful
sharp cleft of your chest, the valley of the
shadow of death,
there was only the present moment, and as you
slept in the quiet, I watched you as one watches
a newborn child, aware each moment of the
miracle, the line that has been crossed
out of the darkness.

There's probably no more devastating news than a cancer diagnosis.  I remember the day I received a phone call from one of my siblings, telling me that our sister had lymphoma of the brain, with doctors giving her very little chance for survival.  I walked around, not really hearing or seeing anything for hours.  To borrow Olds' metaphor, a line had been crossed, and I could never go back over it.  I was stuck on the other side.

It pretty much snowed all day today.  I didn't really do a whole lot besides shovel a little, practice for a few worship services at various churches, and write poems.  I didn't receive any news, good or bad.  (Confession:  I've avoided all social media.  I needed a break from the President and Republicans.)  I am calmer right now than I've been all week.

You see, I find myself falling into an old habit from 2016:  scrolling and scrolling through newsfeeds, becoming more and more horrified with every appearance of the color orange.  It literally began to make me physically ill back then.  I'm not going to bury my head in the sand for the next four years, but I'm also not going to climb onboard the Trump Unlimited Railroad every day, either.

Instead, I try to focus on what's in front of me:  birds, my sleeping puppy, ice-shagged pines, crimson winterberries.  I fill my mind with these tangible, concrete pleasures, and it makes me less . . . crazy.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight, based on following prompt from The Daily Poet, that focuses on the present moment:

It's the birthday of Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most well-regarded poets of the 20th century.  Bishop's forte is looking closely at the world's creatures and sharing them with her reader in a painterly fashion:  palm trees are fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons and a dead hen's wing is as thin as tissue paper.  For today's poem, take a walk around your block and notice the small and seemingly insignificant things you pass (a leaf, a beetle, a patch of poppies), as well as your neighbors and/or their dogs, cats, and children.  If you are up for it, take notes.  Either way, return to your desk to describe in vivid detail what you observed.

Bone Cold

by: Martin Achatz

In my backyard,

winter cracked its

knuckles under

my boots--teeth

white as moonlight,

arms bone hard--said

to me, I wish I could be

more like you,

with your fountain

pen and notebook.

If you only knew

how I would give up

everything--the blizzard

of my belly, tundra 

of my toes, wind

of my eyelashes--

if I could simply 

write one line 

of poetry that would

break the heart of summer,

make it understand 

how lonely I am 

for the lips

of the sun.

October 7: "Adage," Monday, Clichés

Since I started taking creative writing workshops, I've been taught to avoid clichés like the plague.  (Okay, I know it's an old joke, but it still makes me chuckle.)  

I've tried to follow that rule, for the most part.  However, there was a time when each cliché was new and surprising.  Some author once wrote "dead as a doornail," and it was considered bold and insightful.  I'm not quite sure when originality gives way to hackneyed. 

Billy Collins clichés it up a little . . . 

Adage

by: Billy Collins

When it’s late at night and branches
are banging against the windows,
you might think that love is just a matter

of leaping out of the frying pan of yourself
into the fire of someone else,
but it’s a little more complicated than that.

It’s more like trading the two birds
who might be hiding in that bush
for the one you are not holding in your hand.

A wise man once said that love
was like forcing a horse to drink
but then everyone stopped thinking of him as wise.

Let us be clear about something.
Love is not as simple as getting up
on the wrong side of the bed wearing the emperor’s clothes.

No, it’s more like the way the pen
feels after it has defeated the sword.
It’s a little like the penny saved or the nine dropped stitches.

You look at me through the halo of the last candle
and tell me love is an ill wind
that has no turning, a road that blows no good,

but I am here to remind you,
as our shadows tremble on the walls,
that love is the early bird who is better late than never.

It was a Monday.  (That may be a cliché.)  Everyone knows what that sentence implies--it just wasn't a good day.  I won't say it was a terrible day, but it certainly wasn't one for the record books.  Nothing exciting occurred.  I didn't get a call from the Swedish Academy.  Or win the lottery.  Or write a perfect poem.

However, I did teach my Intro to Film class.  And revised some poems.  And visited with my great friend Jody.  In short, I kept myself busy as a beaver.  As Mary Poppins said, a stitch in time saves nine.  (I have no idea what that adage means, but it has something to do with careful work.)

I'm not feeling very . . . original tonight.  More like tired, bordering on exhausted.  Tonight feels like a cliché, because Mondays are supposed to be disappointing.  So, I'm going to leave it there.  I'm sure that there are people who will argue with me, saying that it's all about attitude.  If I changed my attitude, perhaps today would not have been so . . . so . . . Monday.

But I didn't.

Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote, "This should be the spirit of every Monday.  Know that something good will always happen."

Forgive Saint Marty if he doesn't stand up and cheer.

A cliché picture--it has appeared a couple times on the blog..  

October 5: "Clapp's Pond," Birthday, Nobel Prize

Mary Oliver talks about how connection . . .

Clapp's Pond

by:  Mary Oliver

Three miles through the woods

Clapp's Pond sprawls stone gray

among oaks and pines,

the late winter fields

where a pheasant blazes up

lifting his yellow legs

under bronze feathers, opening

bronze wings;

and one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches

its dampness sharply, flares

out of the brush and gallops away.

                         ∞

By evening, rain.

It pours over the roof.  The last

acorns spray over the porch; I toss

one, then two more

logs on the fire.

                         ∞

How sometimes everything

closes up, a painted fan, landscapes and moments

flowing together until the sense of distance--

say, between Clapp's Pond and me--

vanishes, edges slide together

like the feathers of a wing, everything

touches everything.

                         ∞

Later, lying half-asleep under

the blankets, I watch

while the doe, glittering with rain, steps

under the wet slabs of the pines, stretches

her long neck down to drink

                         ∞

from the pond

three miles away.

Everything touches everything else.

That is Oliver's message in tonight's poem.  Clapp's Pond touches the pheasant touches the doe touches the rain touches the acorns touches logs on the fire touches Clapp's Pond again.  Throw the speaker of the poem into that mix, and you truly have everything touching everything else all at once.

Today, I celebrated the start of my 56th trip around the Sun.  Before I even woke up, people were sending me birthday wishes, from as far away as Germany and New Zealand.  And each and every greeting reminded me how lucky I truly am.

Most of us go through our days feeling completely disconnected, as if each of us is a circus of one--ringmaster, lion tamer, clown, trapeze artist, elephant, camel, and Franky the Amazing Dogboy all rolled into one.  When my head hits the pillow at night, I find myself already already thinking about the next day's circus.  

Yet, disconnection is truly just a feeling--it doesn't reflect reality.  At least for me.  I have people all over the globe who care about my welfare.  The disciples of this blog are spread out from Taiwan to Syria to Dunedin.  This little thing called the Internet (you may have heard of it) has managed to shrink the distances (metaphorical and physical) between peoples.  I'm sitting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and just received a message a little while ago from an acquaintance currently in Rome.  Small world, small tribe.

Now, I'm not deluded enough to think that just because I have a lot of friends on Facebook means that I'm popular or well-liked.  I've said it before:  social media is not a good barometer of reality.  However, when people take a few seconds out of their days to send me birthday greetings, I get the feeling that I've made some small impact on the world and some lives in that world.

That makes me feel pretty darn connected.

No, I didn't win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year (that went to a Norwegian writer this morning--Jon Fosse).  No, I didn't receive a phone call from President Biden wishing me a happy birthday.  And, no, Governor Whitmer didn't sign a proclamation designating today Saint Marty Day in Michigan.  

However, I had seafood risotto and a raspberry chocolate bomb for dinner tonight.  My wife, daughter, and son sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  Then, we played a board game.  When she left to go home, my daughter laid her head on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, "Happy birthday, Daddy!"

For Saint Marty, that was better than a call from the Swedish Academy.

September 8: "The Summer Day," Wild and Precious, Jedi Knight

Mary Oliver asks some more tough questions . . . 

The Summer Day

by:  Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

As a Catholic school boy, I can answer Oliver's first question easily:  Who made the world?

Answer:  God made the world.

Now, in the catechism I studied, the next question would probably be:  Who is God?

And the answer would be:  God is the supreme being who made all things.

Of course, Oliver's answer to that first query is a little less dogmatic and little more beautiful.  She asks additional questions.  Gives us a grasshopper eating sugar from the palm of her hand.  Tells us that she is idle and blessed because she knows that life is brief as a birthday candle, and soon her flame will be disappear in a breath of wind.  Finally, Oliver asks her last question, the one to which the rest of the poem seems prelude:

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?"

There it is.  We're all given one wild and precious life on this planet, and it's up to us to make it extraordinary.  Or ordinary.  Or messy.  Or miraculous.  Those are all options.  Tonight, I stepped into my backyard right around twilight, which is one of my favorite times of day.  I love to watch the sky deepen and stars wink on.  There was a chill in the air, and it felt like an ending and a beginning.  Summer being ushered out, and autumn crowding in.

For Oliver, a twilight moment like that may impart just enough meaning into her wild and precious life.  She would kneel in the grass, under the just-appearing stars, and feel the peace of wild things (thanks, Wendell Berry, for that phrase).  Oliver's a poet, and her job is to . . . notice.

I am well into the second or third act of my life.  I've worked in a bookstore and outpatient surgery center.  I've been a college English professor for going on 30 years.  I work in a library now.  Write poetry daily.  Love my kids and wife and friends exponentially.  I . . . am . . . blessed.

That's enough.  

If the Swedish Academy awarded me the Nobel Prize in Literature, that would be enough.  If Pope Francis canonized me tomorrow, that would be enough, too.  If Mary Oliver's ghost visited me in the middle of the night.  If my wife cooked me a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  If Obi-Wan Kenobi made me a Jedi Knight.  Enough, enough, and enough.

It's all about living in the moment and being grateful for whatever happens.

Tonight, Saint Marty's wild and precious life was blessed by the ribs of a pine tree against a dusky blue sky.  

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.

October 10-11: No Significance, Sleepless Nights, Nobel Prize for Literature

In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning whose upper arm sustains the bruise.  This fact may safely be made the subject of suspense since it is of no significance whatsoever.

There will be no suspense in this blog post.  And most of what I write will have little to no literary significance whatsoever.  I have had a week of mostly sleepless nights, due to projects and work I needed to complete.  I am beat.

I apologize for my absence last night.  My excuse is simple:  poetry.  I was leading my monthly workshop at the Joy Center in my home town.  The theme was fears and phobias, and I had a great evening of poeting with a group of talented writers and friends.  These workshops have become one of my favorite monthly events.  Yesterday, I got home from the workshop at around 11 p.m., with every intention of typing a quick post before I went to bed.  Didn't happen, obviously.

And I have a feeling that, when I get home tonight, I will probably not have a whole lot of energy.  I'm feeling a little exhausted already.  As soon I eat dinner, I have a date with my pillow and blankie.  (Yes, I said "blankie."  Don't judge me.)  My body makes me do this every once in a while.  I think of it as a reboot, where I have to reset in order to continue to function properly.

Before I call it a night, however, I must make mention of the fact that, once again, the Swedish Academy has overlooked me for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  In fact (since no literature Nobel was awarded last year because of a sex scandal within the Swedish Academy), I had double the chances of winning this year--winners were announced for the years 2018 and 2019. 

Again, there is no suspense here.  I waited for the call this morning from the Swedish Academy's new Permanent Secretary, Mats Malm.  I had my cell phone at the ready at 6 a.m.  I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.  Eventually, Mats walked through the white doors into the main hall of the Swedish Academy and announced that the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2018 was the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk and the winner of the Nobel for 2019 was Austrian writer Peter Handke.  Once again, my literary accomplishments went unrewarded.

Almost immediately after the announcement, I received my annual text from one of my best friends.  It simply read:  "Dammit!  The Nobel Academy is blind.  I am so tired of you getting robbed!"

Never fear.  One of these years, the doors to the great hall will swing open, and the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy will enter.  The reporters' cameras will go machine gun crazy taking pictures.  The Secretary will clear his throat and announce:  "The Nobel Prize in Literature for the year [fill in the blank] is awarded to the American author Saint Marty for a body of work that crosses the boundaries of intellect and emotion, mapping the continents of experience with a depth of dark wit and wisdom, giving voice to the voiceless immigrants of the human condition."  Or something like that.

Until that time, Saint Marty will sleep peacefully tonight, knowing that, some December in the future, his trip to Sweden is coming . . .

October 9: Halloween Poetry Reading, Bigfoot Poems, Classic Saint Marty

Greetings, loyal disciples, on this Sabbath day.

As with most Sabbaths, I have been working on various projects most of the day.  Church this morning, playing in the band.  This afternoon, I spent a few hours planning a Halloween poetry reading that I'm doing in a week at our local library.  I've been working on a sequence of Bigfoot poems.  My bandmates are going to be doing music (think "Creep" by Radiohead).  And I will be unveiling some works in progress.

This afternoon, it's school stuff.  Midterm to create.  Essay rubric to put together.  Quizzes to grade.  Plus, my family is having a belated Saint Marty's Day celebration.  Tapioca and presents.  The whole shebang.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago.  More about the Swedish Academy and its short-sightedness.

October 9, 2014:  A Special Award, 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Peter Modiano

"Attention, please!" it said.  "Will Mr. Homer Zuckerman bring his famous pig to the judges' booth in front of the grandstand.  A special award will be made there in twenty minutes.  Everyone is invited to attend.  Crate your pig, please, Mr. Zuckerman, and report to the judges' booth promptly!"

Yes, Wilbur gets a prize at the end of the book.  Zuckerman gets twenty-five dollars.  Fern gets Henry Fussy (or vice versa).  And, above all, Charlotte reaps the rewards of all the writing she's been doing in her webs.

This morning, Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, announced the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm.  And the winner was...not me.  It was some French novelist named Peter Modiano.  I was going to say "obscure novelist," but then I risk sounding like some Anglo-centric, ignorant American.  From what I've read, Modiano is one of the greatest French writers alive.  He's published over thirty-plus novels.  His subjects are memory, identity, and time.  Blah, blah, blah.

I know all my disciples are crying foul tonight.  Once again, I have been robbed of an award I so richly deserve.  Instead, the Swedes have chosen to bestow their prize on yet another writer who will, no doubt, fade from memory faster than you can say "Pepé Le Pew."  So what if the French people love him?  The French awarded Jerry Lewis the Legion of Honor.

I am not bitter or jealous, however.

Peter Modiano won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Saint Marty's going to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend.  Who's laughing now?

The winner of this year's Nobel 
Prize in Literature

October 8: Mockingbird on the Chimney, Panel of Poets, Swedish Spies

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing.... The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

Dillard is talking about birdsong in this little passage, and the fact that people spend a great deal of time talking about what the mockingbird on the chimney is saying.  Is it singing about the sun on its feathers?  The hawk circling in the sky?  Its nest of eggs in the pine tree?  No, Dillard says.  We're missing the point.  It's not the message so much as the package.  Sort of like looking at all the beautiful packages sitting under the Saint Marty's Day tree and not really thinking about what they contain.

Today, in about twenty minutes to be exact, I have to go to a local library to participate in a panel of poets.  It's part of a celebration of independent booksellers.  I was invited last week, and I agreed.  Of course, then all the low self-esteem kicked in.  I've known all the other poets for many, many years.  They are accomplished and successful.  My doubts and fears are unfounded.  I know that.  Like Dillard says, it's not really about what the mockingbird is singing.  It's about the beauty of the song.  I must keep that in mind.

So, I will show up, try to sell a few books, talk about poetry for an hour, maybe read some poems, and answer some questions.  I will be on the chimney with all the other mockingbirds, trying to create something uplifting, something that touches the heavens.  That's the goal, anyway.

No word from the Swedish Academy yet, although Saint Marty suspects there will be some very Scandinavian members in the audience today.

The Swedish Academy's motto.  I think it translates as "Saint Marty is great!"

October 6: Everything and Anything, Post Saint Marty's Day, 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

The world is full of creatures that for some reason seem stranger to us than others, and libraries are full of books describing them--hagfish, platypuses, lizardlike pangolins four feet long with bright green, lapped scales like umbrella-tree leaves on a bush hut roof, butterflies emerging from anthills, spiderlings wafting through the air clutching tiny silken balloons, horseshoe crabs . . . the creator creates.  Does he stoop, does he speak, does he save, succor, prevail?  Maybe.  But he creates; he creates everything and anything.

Dillard is writing about God, the creator of everything that crawls and flies and swims and oozes under the sun and moon.  God doesn't get tired of creating.  God is creating.  However, Dillard could just as easily be describing herself or Toni Morrison or William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway.  Writers create worlds, as well.  They creates stories about ghosts and bear hunts.  An old man battling an immense fish in the middle of a unforgiving ocean.

I am now in the doldrums of post Saint Marty's Day.  The celebrations aren't over.  My family is having a Saint Marty's Day party this Sunday, filled with bratwurst and tapioca pudding and gifts.  As Charles Dickens wrote in A Saint Marty's Day Carol, "I will honor Saint Marty's Day in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

Always around Saint Marty's Day, another event takes place.  Every year, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm announces the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  I happen to know that, as the Swedes discuss and debate with each other, they eat bowls of tapioca and sing traditional Saint Marty's Day songs.  Now, some of the greatest writers who ever lived have won the Nobel, all under the influence and grace of Saint Marty.

This year, the prize will be announced on October 13.  Reporters will gather in the Grand Hall of the Swedish Academy at the appointed hour.  The gold and white doors will open, and the Permanent Secretary will step into the camera lights.  Then, speaking in Swedish, she will announce the name of a writer.  One lucky writer. 

It may be my year.  Saint Marty.  Poet.  Teacher.  Blogger.  I'm sure that I have made the short list already many times.  The only reason that I have not won already is that the Swedes are highly superstitious academics.  They don't like mixing religion and literature.  That's what cost Tolstoy the prize.  However, I have a feeling that this year, drunk of their feast of Diet Mountain Dew and tapioca, the Permanent Secretary, in a hushed voice (almost a prayer), will say those words that the entire world has been longing to hear:

"The Swedish Academy is pleased to announce that the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to Saint Marty, who in essays and poetry and blog posts characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential part of spiritual reality." 

The Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, and a big Saint Marty fan

September 22: Fragment of a Shell, MacArthur Genius Grant, Nobel Prize in Literature

At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp.  There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch.  The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea.  All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin it passes a faint pink light, and almost as flexible as a straight razor.  It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve . . .

Dillard is talking about something hard and rough turned into something beautiful and translucent over time.  A seashell turned into pink light, and essence of air and curve.  That's really what art is all about, taking ugliness and transforming it into poetry or dance.  It takes hard work.  Talent.  A gift.  Sometimes, genius.

The recipients of the MacArthur Foundation's genius grants were announced today.  There were scientists and teachers and activists.  Playwrights and poets.  One of the winners was one of my favorite writers, Maggie Nelson.  She writes nonfiction, sort of.  A crazy blend of poetry and prose that defies classification.  One of my favorite books of hers is Bluets, which is her examination of the color blue, in all its permutations and meanings.  It's weird and frustrating and gorgeous.  Genius?  Probably.

Every year around this time, I wait to read about two things--the announcement of the MacArthur awards and, right around my birthday, the announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Like the selection of the MacArthur genius grant recipients, the Nobel is shrouded in secrecy.  Nobody knows, until the doors open in the Swedish Academy and the Permanent Secretary comes out, who will receive the Nobel diploma.

For some reason, I've always had this dream that, one day, I will receive a phone call in late September, telling me that I'm a genius, and then, on my birthday a few weeks later, my name will be spoken by the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.  I know, I know.  It's unrealistic.  Hell, it's more than unrealistic.  It's a friggin' hallucination, an acid trip, a psychotic break.  But it makes me happy when I think about it.

Now, I am not a MacArthur genius.  Yet.  Japanese writer Haruki Murakami is currently on the top of everybody's list for the Nobel Prize in Literature this year.  Oh, well.  When I go to sleep tonight, I will still be dreaming of the double knockout.  Maggie Nelson.  Maybe Murakami.

And maybe, one year, Saint Marty--the first blogger to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

October 5: Saint Marty's Day, Poet of the Week, "When They Draw Us," "Ives" Dip, Adventures of Stickman

Happy Saint Marty's Day!

Yes, the day has finally arrived.  Hopefully, all of my disciples have had a chance to celebrate.  Tonight, I'm sure, everyone will be gathering around their Saint Marty's Day trees to share bowls of tapioca and bask in the warm glow of the twinkling lights.  Maybe put on a little Saint Marty's Day music by Judy Garland or Bing Crosby.

I, myself, have had a very nice Saint Marty's Day.  My desk at work was bedecked with signs and banners when I arrived.  Later, I was given a box of Saint Marty's Day candies (chocolates and taffy and truffles).  All of my coworkers stopped by to wish me "Happy Saint Marty's Day!"  Tonight, when I get home, I will relax with a cup of Saint Marty's Day cheer.

On this auspicious day, I am pleased to announce that the Poet of the Week is Eric Torgersen.  I've had his 2012 collection of poems, Heart. Wood., for a while, and I find the fierce simplicity and clarity of his lines hypnotic.  I think you will, too: 

When They Draw Us

by:  Eric Torgersen

When they draw us, the children,
as great beaming sun-faces
balanced on sticks, waving sticks,
can it be that they see us so soon
with a clarity we believe
comes only with age?

They draw us out
of ourselves, our trembling palaces,
into the fragile worlds
they play, dream fear into being,
as if they know even now
we will be going.

A haunting little poem that strikes at the heart of every parent.  Yes, children do seem to grasp the fragility of life at a very young age, I think.  A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old son was listening to songs from one of my CDs.  He looked at me and said, "Umm, Daddy, when you die, can I have this CD?"  That's it.  He knows that I'm not going to be around forever, and he's laying claim to my belongings.  Happy Saint Marty's Day!

In the spirit of the holiday, my Ives dip question deals with one of the most important Saint Marty's Day mysteries:

Will Saint Marty be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature this year (winner to be announced on October 8 at the Swedish Academy)?

And the answer from Ives this blessed night:

"Please," Ives was saying.  "In good conscience I can't condone it.  No."

Well, I don't think that answer is very clear.  I guess I'll just have to wait until Thursday morning to find out.

Saint Marty, Nobel Laureate.  Just trying it on for size.

Adventures of STICKMAN

October 9: A Special Award, 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Peter Modiano

"Attention, please!" it said.  "Will Mr. Homer Zuckerman bring his famous pig to the judges' booth in front of the grandstand.  A special award will be made there in twenty minutes.  Everyone is invited to attend.  Crate your pig, please, Mr. Zuckerman, and report to the judges' booth promptly!"

Yes, Wilbur gets a prize at the end of the book.  Zuckerman gets twenty-five dollars.  Fern gets Henry Fussy (or vice versa).  And, above all, Charlotte reaps the rewards of all the writing she's been doing in her webs.

This morning, Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, announced the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm.  And the winner was...not me.  It was some French novelist named Peter Modiano.  I was going to say "obscure novelist," but then I risk sounding like some Anglo-centric, ignorant American.  From what I've read, Modiano is one of the greatest French writers alive.  He's published over thirty-plus novels.  His subjects are memory, identity, and time.  Blah, blah, blah.

I know all my disciples are crying foul tonight.  Once again, I have been robbed of an award I so richly deserve.  Instead, the Swedes have chosen to bestow their prize on yet another writer who will, no doubt, fade from memory faster than you can say "Pepé Le Pew."  So what if the French people love him?  The French awarded Jerry Lewis the Legion of Honor.

I am not bitter or jealous, however.

Peter Modiano won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Saint Marty's going to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend.  Who's laughing now?

The winner of this year's Nobel in Literature

October 10: Isak Dinesen, Alice Munro, and the Nobel Prize

The book I was reading was this book I took out of the library by mistake.  They gave me the wrong book, and I didn't notice it till I got back to my room.  They gave me Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it didn't.  It was a very good book...

 As I've said before, Holden has pretty good taste in authors.  Isak Dinesen was nominated at least two times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, both times making it to the "short list" of five authors under serious consideration.  She lost to Albert Camus one year, and I think she lost to a Russian writer the other time.

This morning, the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature was announced.  Everybody was expecting a Japanese novelist or a Romanian journalist.  It ended up being Canadian writer Alice Munro, who is 82 years old and writes only short stories.  It's the first time an author has been recognized by the Swedish Academy for short fiction.

My guess is that Munro is going to be a popular choice around the world.  She's internationally regarded as a master of the short story form, and she looks like a grandma.  I listened to a phone interview with her this morning, and she even sounds like a grandma.  You can't get angry about a grandma winning a prize.

Putting the grandma factor aside, however, I must say that some people in literature forums I visit had some fairly negative reactions to Munro's award.  Most of the criticism was based on her subject matter, which isn't considered important or worldly enough.  Others commented on the fact that the Swedish Academy chose her because she is a woman, and the Swedes are trying to even up the disparity between male and female laureates.

I think both of these reactions are, to put it bluntly, bullshit.  Let me explain.

Criticizing Alice Munro for writing about rural people in rural Canada living rural lives is like criticizing Charles Dickens for writing about London so much.  Her short stories have brilliant psychological insight and lightning moments of revelation.  Just because Munro confines her work to her own little piece of the world doesn't make her any less universal.

And dismissing Alice Munro's award as the Swedish Academy's attempt to even up some sort of Nobel gender seesaw is insulting.  Munro won the prize because she's an exceptional artist, not because she has a vagina instead of a penis.  To follow the gender argument to its inevitable, and misogynistic, end, that means that because Munro is a woman, her writing is necessarily inferior to writing by men.  Puh-lease.

So, Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.  Get used to the idea, Munro-haters.  If you don't like it, take action.  Immigrate to Sweden, become a linguist or scholar of renown, hang around Stockholm a lot, pay-off some Swedish academics, and get elected to the Swedish Academy.  In the mean time, shut your pie holes.

That's a piece of Saint Marty's mind.

This year's winner

October 9: Nobel Prize Announcement

It is Nobel week in Sweden.  The winners of this year's Nobel Prizes are being announced.  Tomorrow morning, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced.

In the a.m., I will be sitting at my computer, watching everything live at the Swedish Academy.  Last year, just when the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy was going to announce the winner's name, the broadcast froze up.  I never heard the name.  I found out later by checking the news reports.

I'm hoping it's some author I like who wins the Prize.  Someone caring and talented and humble.  Someone who's up-and-coming instead of down-and-going.  Someone like...You can finish that thought.

Saint Marty has to go write his acceptance speech.

I think I'll look good next to Churchill

September 30: Poetry Questions, Repeating Myself, Another 8-Ball

I just reread my two posts from this past weekend.  In particular, I reread the poems contained in those posts.  Yesterday, I thought both poems were decent, maybe even good.  Today, I'm not so sure.

I tend to be pretty hard on myself when it comes to my poetry.  I think that's why I don't send my work out for publication more often.  My stuff never seems good enough to me.  In fact, sometimes it seems like I'm writing the same poems over and over and over.  That worked for Walt Whitman.  I don't think it works for me.

I've been following a discussion thread on the World Literature Forum recently.  It concerns possible contenders for the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature.  It's a lively little debate that often ranges far off topic, as it does every year.  In particular, I'm always struck by the polarizing quality of certain writers.  Philip Roth has a strong contingent of supporters and detractors; the naysayers mostly sing the same song:  Roth's work is lightweight, always focused on the same themes and ideas, misogynistic.  During the Nobel season, Roth is the literary equivalent of liver and onions.  You either love him or hate him.  Certainly Roth's vision of American life (with its antisemitism and racism and sex) is no less valid than Nadine Gordimer's vision of South Africa under apartheid or Mo Yan's vision of communist China.  They all have their writerly obsessions.

Yes, I repeat myself in my poetry.  That's a part of being a poet, I guess.  That's how collections of poems get written.  Obsession is an undeniable part of any writer's make-up.  One of my friends recently spent two years researching a book about the man who discovered the giant squid.  I, myself, spent 47 days writing a book of 47 psalms.  One psalm per day X 47 days = insanity.  At the time, I didn't think I was obsessed.  I thought I was driven.

Maybe I need to cut myself some slack.  After all, writing about the same obsession over and over has worked well for many writers.  Roth.  Morrison.  Faulkner.  Frost.  That's not bad company to be in.  I wonder if Robert Frost ever thought to himself, "Maybe I should stop writing about trees and snow."  I doubt it.

My question for Salinger is silly, but intriguing:

Will I ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

And the answer to that question is:

...I didn't say anything, though, naturally.  All I said was English was my best subject...

English is my best subject, but I think that little passage is equivalent to the Magic 8-Ball answer "Try again later."  Holden's not talking.

And neither is Saint Marty.  He's waiting for the call from the Swedish Academy.

Roth--always a bridesmaid...

August 27: Anexsia and "America's Got Talent"

I have made it through another day.  My students couldn't even tell that it felt like my spleen was going to burst through my belly button Alien-style.  I did get a message on my answering machine from my father-in-law this afternoon, something along the lines of, "You're having appendicitis and decide to got for a three mile run.  You are such a dipshit!"  Of course, he said it in a very loving way.

Now, I'm a happy camper.  I'm on the couch.  I have anexsia.  I have America's Got Talent.

The only thing that could make Saint Marty happier is the Swedish Academy calling me right now and giving me the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature.  And another anexsia.

My troubles are melting like lemon drops...

October 11: Losing Once Mo

As most of you are probably aware by now, I did not win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, despite my four-year-old son's prediction.  That phone call from the Swedish Academy never came this morning.  Instead, I had to watch Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the organization, walk through those white doors into the great hall and announce that Mo Yan, a Chinese novelist, was the winner of the Prize for 2012.

Whatever.  He grew up poor, the son of farmers.  Whatever.  He lives under the censorship of communist China.  Whatever.  He's only 57 years old, and he's already won the Nobel Prize.  Whatever.  When Peter Englund called to tell Mo Yan that he had won the Nobel, Yan said he was "overjoyed" and "scared."  Whatever.  He made his literary debut in 1981, which means it took him only 30 years to get the attention of the Swedes.  Whatever.  He's the first Nobel laureate from China.  Whatever.

I guess my reaction today is "whatever."  If the Swedish Academy wants to honor a communist, that's fine.  If they want to award another novelist, big deal.  If they want to ignore my immense talent for yet another year, so be it.

Saint Marty is a patient man.  Sort of.

The man who stole my Nobel

October 11: Hour Was Passed, Wisest Resolution, the Announcement

Scrooge lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no mre go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

So, there Scrooge sits in his bed, waiting for the first of the Christmas Ghosts to appear.  He sits and listens to his clock chime the times.  It's a long wait for the old guy, but he's determined to prove to himself that Marley's visit was simply the result of some bad gruel.

I, myself, am playing the waiting game this morning, along with Scrooge.  You see, this morning, in approximately 36 minutes, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is going to be announced in Stockholm at the Swedish Academy.  I have it from a good source that I will win this year.  (Of course, my good source was my four-year-old son who told me, "Daddy, you win.  Can I play your iPad now?")  Thus, I am sitting here with no less than two other computers plugged into the Nobel Prize site, waiting for the live Webcast from the Swedish Academy to start.  I'm expecting it to commence any moment.  According to the countdown clock, there are less than 29 minutes left until the announcement.

I'm thinking that I will take the rest of the day off work and teaching when I win at 7 a.m.  The media will be outrageous, and my phone will simply ring off the hook.  I won't have time to do anything else but talk to reporters and bask in the admiration and jealousy of other writers.  Sorry Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth and Alice Munro.  It's my Nobel year.

The live Webcast just booted up, which means that in 20 minutes or so, Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, will be calling to congratulate me, and then he will walk through the white doors into the great hall and release my name to the world.  It will be a great day for world literature.

Well, I must go and await my call from Sweden.

Saint Marty will see you on the other side of the Nobel Prize announcement.

I'm waiting for your call, Mr. Englund