Poetics and Ruminations

R. I. P. Morton Marcus

         I heard today from my friend and former student Dennis Morton in Santa Cruz that his fellow townsman, and my former Iowa Workshop classmate, the poet Morton Marcus, died today. Dennis and I had been corresponding over the past few days about Mort, so this was in the air between us.

         We’d last seen each other in April 2006 when Dennis put together a reunion of Mort, Vern Rutsala, and me in Santa Cruz: the three of us older people had not been together since we’d been schoolmates in Iowa City in 1959-60, the best of friends, as we remained ever after, until now. This picture, below, is of Joan Rutsala, Mort Marcus, and the docent of Robinson Jeffers’ home, Tor House, in Monterey, California, during that reunion (click on the picture to see it entire):

R.I.P. MORTON MARCUS

1936 – October 28, 2009

 

Here lies the offbeat Dreamer

Whose beard wound round his nose.

His rage, created by the world,

Was vented on a rose.

 

Our deepest sympathies to Donna, and to Mort himself, goodbye, old friend.

HEALTH ALERT!

 

 Marcel Proust

Dresden, Maine, October 21, 2009. Exclusive to the Dresden Mills Gazette. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, today released an urgent appeal to the medical community and to the nation at large regarding an impending health emergency.

According to Dr. Horace S. Asce, M. D., seminal assistant director of reproductive assets at the Centers, bird flu has crossed with swine flu to coalesce into a major epidemic threat indigenous to the United States and potentially a danger to everyone world-wide.

“This could cause a pandemic,” said Dr. Asce when asked why he and not someone from the department of infectious diseases was spokesman for the Centers on this issue.

“Because,” Dr. Asce replied, “this disease is spread by unfertilized eggs. Anyone who has eggs for breakfast is in danger of infection.”

“Why breakfast?” he was asked by reporters present, in particular Wesli Court, chief influenza correspondent of the Dresden Mills Gazette.

“Sorry,” the doctor said, “I did not mean to imply one could catch this new strain of flu only at breakfast. One is at risk at any meal where eggs are served, in any form.”

“Is eating eggs the only way somebody can become infected?” Court asked in a follow-up question.

“No,” said the doctor. “One can also catch this disease by reading a particlar novel written by the French author Marcel Proust.”

“What novel is that?” Court asked.

“Swann’s Way,” he was told.

“How so?”

“Because,” Dr. Asce explained, “This cross between swine flu and bird flu is called Swann flue,” said the Doctor.

“You can get sick from a novel?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Asce. “I speak from experience. Many novels have made me sick.”

“Is this novel flu a single strain?” Court rejoined.

“No,” Dr. Asce said. “There are two strains. The more lethal has a capital S and a double n, as in ‘Swann.’ The other strain is simple swan flu, and you can avoid it if you duck or are goosed in time.”

“That would be a good thing,” opined the reporter, which the doctor confirmed. “Not only good, but eggcellent,” he agreed.

“Has anyone died of swan flu?” Court asked.

“Only readers of Proust so far,” was the reply. “The best defense against this deadly disease is to refrain from reading French novels. In fact, to be perfectly certain that one will not be infected at any stage, in my opinion one should reman at a distance from French literature entirely for an extended period,” said Dr. Asce.