Martin Settle

Martin Settle’s New Poetry Chapbook

August 15, 2026 by Mark West

The Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, more commonly known as Charlotte Lit, regularly posts an online newsletter that they call Lit Weekly. I always read each issue, and that is where I saw the news about Charlotte Lit Press’s publication of Martin (Marty) Settle’s new poetry chapbook. Titled The Wild Garlic Manifesto, this chapbook has an official release date of August 18, 2026.

Marty and I go back many years. I have been following his writing career since he published his first book, a poetry collection titled The Teleology of Dunes, with Main Street Rag press in 2015. From his first book to his newest release, Marty has written about nature and humans’ interactions with the natural world. In The Wild Garlic Manifesto, Marty approaches nature with a sense of awe but also with an urgent sense of purpose as is reflected in his use of the word “manifesto” in the title of his collection. For Marty, developing an appreciation of the wonders of nature is a cause that has both individual and societal benefits. I contacted Marty and asked him for more information about The Wild Garlic Manifesto. Here is what he sent to me:

The Wild Garlic Manifesto is my ninth book and fourth book of poetry. I am proud to say that I am a Charlotte writer and that all my books have been written and published while I resided in Charlotte. I am equally proud to say that this particular book will be published by Charlotte Lit, an amazing organization in Charlotte for all things writerly.

In The Wild Garlic Manifesto, the central image is a shock of wild garlic leaves in the midst of a manicured grass lawn. The garlic has defied all the chemicals and human effort to exterminate it. The grass lawn represents the fascist orderliness demanded from a government. Since the 1960s when I thrived as a hippie, I have always identified with the wild garlic. I was part of the underground that opposed the violence and pollution that always goes together with a totalitarian regime.

While The Wild Garlic Manifesto has poems that represent my activism in opposing our present government, it has many more poems that try to soothe our present predicament with nature’s wonder. I find so many of the philosophies and religions of our times unable to do anything but create confusion. They offer little solid to the imagination – post modernism, social constructionism, deconstruction, Christianity, and mythology. But nature is real and solid. To get meaning out of it, all ye need to do is to observe and be in awe of living things.

There are poems where I am caught up in the other-than-human imagination. What kind of imagination goes into birds that can not only migrate using magnetic forces and constellations, but can do so with one eye open, so that they can sleep and be awake at the same time? What is it like to find the luminescent Jack-o’-Lantern mushrooms in a forest at night, radiating like a pot of gold? How many of us have been to the Parkway to view the awe of the mountains when right behind us is a vertical bog just as awesome? All these questions are addressed in poetry in The Wild Garlic Manifesto.

Finally, this chapbook is, using Rebecca Elson phrase, “a responsibility to awe.” It is not enough for me to experience awe; I find that I must respond to it with poems. My hope is that these poems will publicly fulfill this duty and allow others to ride this wave of this inspiration.

For more information about The Wild Garlic Manifesto, please click on the following link: https://charlottelit.org/press/chapbooks

I congratulate Marty on the publication of The Wild Garlic Manifesto, and I commend Charlote Lit Press for publishing such poetry chapbooks. Charlotte Lit Press has published several poetry chapbooks that celebrate the wonders of nature, so Marty’s chapbook is in good company here in Storied Charlotte.

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Martin Settle’s New Memoir about Growing Up on the Banks of the Mississippi River

October 18, 2025 by Mark West

I got to know Martin (Marty) Settle during the years that he taught in the English Department at UNC Charlotte. During one of our conversations in the faculty/staff lounge, Marty and I discovered that we share an interest in Mark Twain. He mentioned to me that he, like Twain, grew up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River. He talked about how as a child he identified with the boy characters in Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He said that he hoped to write about his childhood experiences someday when he had more time to devote to writing. Well, that time is now.

Since retiring from teaching in 2010, Marty has focused on writing and various other creative endeavors. His latest publication is a memoir about his growing-up years. Titled This Little Ichnolite of Mine: A Memoir, the book was just released by Legacy Book Press. I contacted Marty and asked him for more information about his memoir. Here is what he sent to me:

The first question people ask me about my book is, “What’s an ichnolite?” An ichnolite is a fossil footprint, and I took the word from an Illinois artist that loved decay as much as I do – Ivan Albright. He has a painting called “This Ichnolite of Mine,” which displays his love of old worn things.

My memoir is about my childhood in a small city on the Mississippi River during the 1950s and ‘60s. Quincy, Illinois, was part of the rust belt when I was born and had seen its golden age pass by in the riverboat era. However, to me and my friends, all the abandoned buildings, the rusted junk, painted-peeled porches, and brick streets with hitching posts represented a land of enchantment. In addition, we had the river with its mythology of Huck Finn and Hogback Island for exploration and eating turtle eggs. Quincy, also, had plenty of woodlands surrounding the city, which were places to build camps and encounter the fascinating behaviors of creatures that did not live in the city.

Besides how children played in my time, I have devoted a number of chapters in Ichnolite to my colorful relatives. River towns tended to be rather independent and lawless and, participating in this frontier spirit were my ancestors, who were bootleggers, gamblers, and barkeeps. At one time in Quincy, I had five uncles and one aunt, who ran bars. I was raised behind bars, and I got to hear some of the finest storytellers around. I include a lot of these tall tales in the book.

Not all is fun and nostalgic in Ichnolite. I have chapters in the memoir about the racism and homophobia at the time (our bar would not serve Black people; and I had a gay brother, who thought he was the only homosexual on earth). I include a look at some of the morose aspects of a Catholic education. Finally, I write about a friend, who was the most adventurous person I’ve ever met, but who finally succumbed to cocaine addiction and suicide.

Why does one write a memoir? I can tell you positively it’s not because I had such a fantastically interesting life nor that my ego required some flattery. There are two quotes I will use to explain my attempt at memoir. First, Ellen Meloy has said, “It seems as if the right words can come only out of the perfect space of a place you love.” My love for my childhood place runs deeper than the Mississippi waters. I have lived in many places in my seventy-nine years, but none qualify for the epithet “home.” Finally, Olga Tokarczuk states, “A thing that happens and is not told ceases to exist and perishes.” In a small way, I would like my past in this place and time with all its varied characters to stay remembered. Quincy, Illinois, is built on limestone bluffs with fossils from an extinct sea. I would like to add a small fossil to those bluffs.

Marty will be reading from his book This Little Ichnolite of Mine this Tuesday, October 21, at Troubadour Booksellers (Sardis Crossing, 1721-7C Sardis Rd N) from 7-9.

For more information about Marty and his books and other creative endeavors, please click on the following link: https://martinsettle.com

In thinking about Marty’s memoir, I am reminded of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, which came out in 1883. A lot has changed in the 142 years between the publication of these two memoirs, but the Mississippi is still just as mighty as ever. In both of these memoirs, the Mississippi River is not just a geographical feature; it is almost a character in these stories. By focusing on the Mississippi River and the communities that are located on the banks of this river, both Marty and Twain show us how our stories are shaped by places. As I see it, this theme reverberates throughout our community of readers and writers, for Storied Charlotte is not just about stories—it’s also about a place.

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