per-element marker - possible? how to?

So I can do:

plot([1,2,3], [1,4,9], marker='+')

and it'll draw 3 points each with a + marker.

What I'd really like to do is

plot([1,2,3], [1,4,9], markerlist=['A', 'B', 'C'])

and have it draw the first point with a rendered
letter 'A', the second with a 'B', and the third with
a 'C'.

1) Not sure how to draw a letter as my marker - are
   markers limited to those in the marker list? Is that
   possible?

2) And is it possible to have a different marker for each
   point in a dataset, specified by a vector? I guess I
   could draw a separate plot for each point, but that's
   an enormous kludge.

JDO