My favorite line in the poem, "False Spring," above, reads: ". . .air / earthen, diaphanous / caught up in curtains." Actually, maybe my favorites are ". . .a math of sprung / windows, starlings inked on rooflines." But I'm a sucker for the word diaphanous.
Martin's second poem that appears in the fall issue is "Elephants," which is set just down the road from us here in Pennsylvania. The poem begins by comparing the hills to sleeping elephants, and continues "but then just yesterday I saw / light on Purman Run / so broad and pure. . ." And there's that perfect balance between the solid and the imagined, what is said and what lingers in the air between words.
After living with Martin for many years, I understand that the words that make these poems ring comes from really hard work. Last night I looked over and he was about pulling his hair out by the roots as he worked. Every word is chiseled out of a mass of stone, comes free smooth and miraculous in his palm.
A student of mine said today in class after I had shared yet another anecdote about Martin editing my work, "You make it sound like he's really tough on you." I answered, "Well, we've been married twelve years. By now, I really trust him. I know he believes in my writing. If he hands back twelve pages with one sentence circled, I've usually already sensed that this is the edit that I needed and couldn't admit yet. And I do the same thing with his poetry."
I really do feel lucky to be married to another writer, and what a happy surprise it's been to find out that we are two writers. . .when we first married, we were kids. We didn't know what we were going to be, really, and maybe you shouldn't, not right out of college, not in a way that means your shoes will be concreted to one place for the rest of your life.
You can't read Martin's poetry online, sadly, but you can order a copy of Prairie Schooner or drop by our house and read our copy. Congratulations to Martin!
