April 29: Lots to Do, Sisyphean Task, "Rye" Dip Monday

Where's the chocolate room?

 I feel like Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I find myself walking around this morning, muttering, "So much time, and so little to do!  Strike that, reverse it."

I have to finish the final edits on my chapbook and get that in the mail.  I know I don't stand a chance, but it's nice to have the hope of publication for a little while.  I have two poems that need a little more tweaking.  Aside from that, I just need to format it, slip it in an envelope, and send it on its way.  I've been living with some of the poems in this little collection for over ten years.  It's time to let them go.

Then I have final exams to grade.  Lots of them.  That is the Sisyphean task preoccupying me today.  That and how sore I am from yesterday afternoon's run.  It's a good sore, though.  It's my body saying, "Oh, yeah, that's what that muscle does!"

Then there's my normal, daily work.  Phones.  Charts. Surgical schedules.  More phones.  Yes, I will be busy today.  Busier than I really want to be.  However, it's on days like this that I'm able to accomplish the most.  To paraphrase from another famous movie character (Dory from Finding Nemo), I "just keep working, just keep working, just keep working."

Today is a Rye dip day.  I haven't really given much thought to any question plaguing my mind at the moment.  I mean, there's the standard questions that are always present:

• Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?
• Will I get a full-time job at the university?
• Will we have enough money to make it through the summer?
• Will Hannah end up with Adam on Girls?

Maybe I'll just go totally off-the-wall this morning and ask a new question that has nothing to do with publishing or money or teaching or any of my normal obsessions.  Here goes:

Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?

OK, I have a one-track mind.  I admit it.  Let's see if Holden is going to actually answer me today.  Flipping through pages.  Flipping.  Flipping.  And the answer is:

Anyway, we danced about four numbers, and then I turned off the radio.  Old Phoebe jumped back in bed and got under the covers.  "I'm improving, aren't I?" she asked me.

So there you have it.  I'm improving.  That means I've improved enough as a poet to win this contest.  (If it seems like I'm pulling that answer out of my ass, I am.  I was determined to get a positive response this morning.)  That contest is in the bank.  Every other entrant might as well send me congratulatory wishes right now.

Saint Marty would like to thank the members of the Academy...

April 18: Kid's Notebook, Poetry Binder, Feeling Accomplished

I sat there on D.B.'s desk and read the whole notebook.  It didn't take me long, and I can read that kind of stuff, some kid's notebook, Phoebe's or anybody's, all day and all night long.  Kid's notebooks kill me.  Then I lit another cigarette--it was my last one.  I must've smoked about three cartons that day.  Then, finally, I woke her up.  I mean I couldn't sit there on that desk for the rest of my life, and besides, I was afraid my parents might barge in on me all of a sudden and I wanted to at least say hello to her before they did.  So I woke her up.

This passage is one of the happier moments for Holden in the book, sitting at his brother's desk, reading Phoebe's school notebook.  He's in his element.  There is the threat of adults barging in and ruining the moment, but, for the most part, Holden simply enjoys Phoebe's innocent world for a little while.

Ever since I assembled my new chapbook of poems on Monday, I've been carrying it around in a three-ring binder.  Having it close by gives me pleasure for some reason.  I even take it to class when I teach.  Every once in a while, I take it out and read a poem.  As I read the poem, I can remember why I wrote it, how I wrote it, when I wrote it, where I wrote it.  I can picture the pen in my hand, scribbling down the words.  I can feel that hum in my head that tells me I'm in deep, writing something of meaning.  I can see my living room at midnight, my school office on an October afternoon, the place where the poem first came to me.  I recently read an interview with Sharon Olds in which she described her writing process, how, when a poem takes hold of her, she has to write immediately, to capture its similes and metaphors down on paper.  That's what I'm able to regain when I read my manuscript--the initial fever that drove me to write.

That's my blessing today.  It may sound conceited, self-centered, and egotistical, but I don't care.  Having that poetry binder gives me a sense of accomplishment and purpose.  I know, in a week or so, that I'm going to send it to a chapbook contest.  For a few months after that, it will fill me with hope until the letter finally comes, telling me that some other person has won instead of me.

For now, though, that binder is full of promise for Saint Marty, like a bird singing in the dark on a cold April morning.

I am filled with hope....