July 13: Writing Contests, Possibility, "Ives" Dip, Poet of the Week, Adrienne Su, "The Word Was My First Companion"

My mind is a blank page at the moment.  I'm still very tired from the events of the weekend.  After I'm done typing this post, I have to go through my binder of poems and put together a packet to submit to a contest.  After that, I am going to try to catch up on some sleep.

Sometimes, I wonder why I enter writing contests.  The last time I won a big prize was when I was a freshman in high school.  I wrote an essay for a contest sponsored by the VFW.  I went to the local radio station, recorded the essay, and didn't think about it again until I won first place on the local level.  Then I won first place on the district level.  Then, at a huge banquet in Lansing, I won first place in the state.  For the next year, I read that essay across the Upper Peninsula, appeared on TV, and got used to being a local celebrity.

That's it.  My fifteen minutes of fame.  Since that time, I have placed second or third in every contest I've entered.  This weekend, I placed fourth in my age group for the race I ran.  That's about the best I can do.  Yet, I'm still going to enter that poetry contest tonight.  Not because I think I'm going to win.  I'm entering because I choose to live in hope instead of defeat.  By entering the contest, I am saying that I believe in myself.  I believe in possibility.

I believe I might win the poetry contest.  I believe I might get a full-time teaching job at the university.  I believe my sister might get better at the University of Michigan hospital.  I believe in mights.

My question for Ives dip Monday is this:

Might I win the poetry contest I'm going to enter tonight?

And the answer from Edward Ives is:

In one slip of a second, anything seemed possible--had the moon risen and started to sing, had pyramids appeared over the Chrysler building weeping, Ives would have been no more surprised.

There you have it.  Anything is possible.  Singing moons.  Weeping pyramids.  Me winning first place in a prestigious poetry contest.

Adrienne Su is the featured Poet of the Week on Saint Marty.  Her collection, Middle Kingdom, has been on my shelf for quite a few years.  Every once in a while, I take it down, open it up, and find myself in its pages.  No, I'm not a young, talented Asian American woman poet.  I'm saying that I live in the possibility I could be a young, talented Asian American woman poet.

Hey, Saint Marty can dream, right?

The Word Was My First Companion

by:  Adrienne Su

In the flickering suburban night,
Not yet acquainted with the name of the feeling,
I did not dream, but commonly imagined

My future as a teacher or journalist
Not thinking to address
Whether there would be a man.

My family would always speak the same language,
In no way turn alien to one another,
And there would never be a poisonous city

Where people demanded psychic space.
There would be no violations,
Only the rules.  There would be no urge

To walk into an unknown cathedral & disappear.
We'd stick tight as a cocoon,
And there being more books in the world

Than I could read in a lifetime
(And no such thing as the slow
Silent robbery of that lifetime),

It would always be like this moment,
Me and the blank page, hugged by night,
Planning the grammatical future.

My famous cousin, Grant.  His picture pops up when I Google my name.  I'm almost famous.

July 12: Long-Ass Day, Writing a Poem, Classic Saint Marty

It has been a long-ass day.  Really long-ass. 

When I got home last night from the fireworks, I started working on a poem.  Actually, I'd been working on this poem for almost three weeks.  It has been a plague on my mind.  It was for the sesquicentennial worship services today at my wife's church.  A couple months ago, I was asked to write this poem by the pastor.  I've been struggling ever since that day.

I don't think I'll ever be able to write a poem for a presidential inauguration.  When Hilary Clinton comes calling next year, I think I'm going to have to check my caller ID before I answer the phone.

Anyway, I was up until 3 a.m. working on the poem.  Then I went to bed and got up at 6 a.m. to finish it.  I was at church at 8 a.m., didn't leave until 2:30 p.m., and then went to my nephew's birthday party.  He is four years old, so it was a couple of hours of screaming toddlers on trampolines.

I am beat.  I'm practically falling asleep right now.  I actually thought about calling in sick for work tomorrow, but I can't bring myself to do it.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired about three years ago, on a Friday.  Enjoy.

July 13, 2012:  Good Luck on Friday the 13th!

I don't believe in bad luck on Friday the 13th.  I've never had bad luck on any Friday the 13th ever.

Tonight, I'm driving up with a group of friends to a camp on Crystal Lake I used to be a counselor at when I was a teenager.  I haven't been back there in a long time.  They closed the place down when the son of the camp cook drowned in the lake one August.  I remember the cook.  Kind of a nutty lady named Mrs. Voorhees.  But, boy, could she make a mean meatloaf surprise!

All of the people I'm going up with used to be counselors with me at Camp Crystal Lake.  They were a wild bunch.  Sneaking off to empty cabins to screw each other's brains out.  Drinking all night long.  Skinny dipping off the dock at midnight.  None of them have changed that much.  It should make for quite a party this evening.

I'm leaving right after work.  It takes about an hour to get there.  Down a few dirt roads.  I hope they don't have the cabins all locked up or anything.  I've already packed all my stuff.  And I didn't forget the bug spray.  I don't want to get eaten alive up there at the lake.  I think it's going to be a blast.

The only thing I'm really going to miss from the good old days is Mrs. Voorhees' meatloaf.  She sure knew how to handle hamburger.  It really was sad about her son.  I can't quite remember his name.  I think it was something like James or Jay.

Any how, I can't wait to see our old stomping grounds.

No, sir.  Saint Marty doesn't believe in all that bad luck on Friday the 13th stuff.

Good old Mrs. Voorhees!

July 11: Mother and Child, Little Man, Matthea Harvey, "Cheap Cloning Process Lets You Have Your Own Little Elvis"

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.

This paragraph comes one page before the end of the book.  Ives has made his peace with God.  Now, Ives returns to the prayers he said when he was young.  He accepts that he will never fully understand the universe in all its complexity.  Yet, he has trust and faith in the goodness of God.

That's what I'm going to do today.  I'm giving my worries and cares away.  I know I'm in control of nothing.  My sister's life is in God's hands.  This morning, she was Skyping with my parents, and she said to my six-year-old son, "Hey, little man."  That makes me incredibly happy.

This morning, I ran a two-mile race with my daughter (she placed first in her age bracket, I placed fourth).  Then I went to a parade in a neighboring city.  Tonight, I'm taking my kids and nieces and nephews to another fireworks show on the shores of a lake.

I'm not going to get all profound today.  I want to maintain that happiness I felt earlier.  Thus, Matthea Harvey's final poem for this week makes me smile.  I hope it will do the same for you.

Saint Marty is going to buy some kettle corn tonight, sit back on a blanket by a lakeshore, and enjoy the light show in the sky.

Cheap Cloning Process Lets You
Have Your Own Little Elvis

by:  Matthea Harvey

If the real Elvis was a racecar,
the little matchbox-sized Elvis we buy
are the half-galaxies of other cars'
odometers seen through a cab window
at night.  When my Elvis does a hip swivel
(like a bobblehead dog on the dash, he's game,
will swivel all day long) it doesn't cause
a full-on swoon, just a tiny pinprick
of desire felt in the arch of the foot.
Like a lozenge when you want a meal.
The Elvi are smart not to serenade us
with "Baby, If You'll Give Me all of Your Love"
on their nanoguitars--we'd crush them
with one corresponding hip spiral of our own.
They stick to strumming "Dainty Little Moonbeams"
while we smoke cigarettes and cloak them
in smoke.  My friend, who's strangely loyal
to the Original Elvis timeline, maintains hers
nicely, smoothes baby oil onto his black hair.
Using a microscope, she's already sewn him
a tiny sequined jumpsuit for his later fatter years
and to that end she deep-fries breadcrumbs stuffed
with a dab of peanut butter and one Baco Bit.
Once I caught mine manhandling a sprig of parsley,
pretending it was Priscilla.  Every month or so
we meet at a playground on our lunchbreak
and corral them all in a sandbox.  Fights flare up
instantaneously over who's the real Elvis,
who's an imposter, and while they pull on
each other's pompadours, we munch on
our pastrami sandwiches, imagining
what's up next:  a tiny Jesus, or a mini
Michael Jackson wearing Disco Barbie's glove.

Love me tender...

July 10: Terrible Darkness, Text Ping, Matthea Harvey, "Preset Fairy Tale Mode"

As they happily walked to the subway, they were looking forward to spending a lot of time together at home during the holiday, in the company of family and friends.  Ives and Annie had stopped to peer into a window display of French linen when, just like that, a terrible darkness entered them, and they could not move and stood looking at one another stupidly, on the crowded and busy sidewalk.

Ives and Annie are out on the town, enjoying some pre-Christmas festivities:  parties, window shopping, watching ice skaters at Rockefeller Center.  As they prepare to return home, they are suddenly overtaken by a cloud of sadness.  They don't understand what has just happened.  All they can do is stare at each other, not knowing that their son has just been killed on the sidewalk in front of their church.

I have spent most of this week dreading a similar experience.  Every time I receive a phone text, a sense of dread overtakes me.  It's not that I have no hope for my sister, but when you're bombarded with terms like "lymphoma" and "neuroblastoma" and "brain atrophy," it's kind of tough to remain positive. 

This morning, I heard the text ping on my phone while I was having breakfast.  I just sat on the couch, not moving for several seconds.   Then I got up and read the message.  It was from the person with whom I carpool, telling me she was going to be a little late.  I literally said "Thank God" because I was so relieved.

This afternoon, my sister went to surgery for her brain biopsy.  Everything went well, but there won't be any news about the results for a couple of days.  That means that I will receive a text on Monday at work.  I'm praying for good news.  Hoping for good news.  But that text could bring a terrible darkness, as well.

I'm really not in the mood to write a fairy tale this week, so I'm going to let the Poet of the Week do that job for me.

Hopefully, Saint Marty, and Saint Marty's sister, will live happily ever after.

Preset Fairy Tale Mode

by:  Matthea Harvey

Once upon a time, in the time
of once upon a time, there was
an inventor who loved a mermaid
and would do anything to please her.
Because she loved sound, he invented
a megaphone, a telettrofono and a drink
that fizzed with the tiny effervescent
fireworks of fermented fruit.  Because
she loved light, he invented smokeless
wicks and built a candle factory.  Because
she was over-fond of candles, he invented
flame retardant paint.  Because she loved
her cats, he came up with a way to carefully
quantify the amount of cream in their milk.
Because she missed her sisters' voices
he made a marine telephone.  Because
her bones were not made for this loud
human world, they began to crack and
ache and crumble.  Because she needed quiet
he tried to hush the trains, the carriage,
even the gulls.  Because she could no longer
climb up or down the stairs, he carried her.

Looking for more Disney, less Grimm brothers