Poetry in Motion – Page 4 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Poetry in Motion: Canadian Hockey Icon, or Experimental French Writer?

May 21, 2013 No Comments

In our continuing unification of the sporting life with that of the bookish, bespectacled square, we bring you our initial foray into the wide world of hockey. Anglo-Norman facial features of the ruggedly handsome were interchangeable between some of the NHL’s all-time greats and some of the most smarty-pants of intellectuals that 1960s France had to offer. Do you think you have what it takes to tell who’s who simply from out of context photos of questionable origin? Play along, […]

Columns, Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: Hunter S. Thompson and Jessica Simpson Make Love at the Kentucky Derby

May 6, 2013 No Comments

I will try to keep this from reading like one of those “Walking Talking Working Class” petri dish disasters penned by Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, or Maureen Dowd: three “social animals” who receive disdainful glances from their cleaning ladies, then deem that scorn a flesh-eating bacteria devouring the American Dream. But fair warning: I’m fighting the urge to tell you all about the Great American Dive Bar – a Bushwick basin called The Cobra Club – from which I watched […]

Books, Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: What to Read Based on Who You’re Rooting For in the NBA Playoffs (Eastern Conference Round-Up)

April 22, 2013 No Comments

Another day, another half of America’s finest sports league. In the conclusion of V1’s two-part preview of this year’s NBA playoffs, we turn to the readily-dismissed Eastern Conference, whose top seeds have emerged as contenders amidst a field of lower-hanging fruit and also-rans. Yet devoted fans of all eight squads will be pleased to know that we’ve got great reading recommendations custom-made for each crew. Whether your team of choice is one and done or going all the way, you’ll […]

Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: What to Read Based on Who You’re Rooting For in the NBA Playoffs (Western Conference Edition)

April 18, 2013 No Comments

In part one of a two-part preview of this year’s NBA playoffs, we look at the league’s Western Conference, oft-considered superior to its Eastern counterpart. But the book recommendations? Whoa Nelly, those will be top shelf on both sides of the court!

Columns, Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: Ernest Hemingway, Drunk Sportsman (On Bullfighting, Motor Racing, and Mountain Climbing)

April 4, 2013 No Comments

As literary blog subjects go, Hemingway is a loaded one. He’s fish in a barrel. Hell, he’s frozen fish sticks that someone’s already browned golden in a toaster oven on Christmas morn, then re-placed in the barrel like some woefully inept Santa. Hemingway has always existed: when you depict him, you might as well be describing the concept of “uncles”, or “varnish”, or “premature ejaculation.” He is ageless and forever. Among his many virtues, Hemingway is oft-remembered as a sports […]

Columns, Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: Jim Bouton, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the Athletics of Self-Awareness

March 21, 2013 No Comments

This is an essay about Ball Four, a tell-all memoir of Major and Minor League Baseball published in 1970 by author/major league knuckleballer Jim Bouton. More specifically it is about why pitchers are often enigmatic. Most specifically of all it is about Bouton’s pained desire – common among achievers – to be perfect by his own standards when he was already excellent by those of the universe at large. But first, let’s go crazy.

Columns, Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: The Merciless Boxing of Fat City, or John Huston: A Love Song

March 7, 2013 No Comments

I first saw John Huston’s 1972 slobber-knocker Fat City at Film Forum a few years ago. As I sat in the dark, I began to wince. Not at the film’s oft-brutal boxing scenes, which while not as spurting in its bloodletting as Raging Bull still manages to treat its fighters like slaughterhouse corpses. I began to wince because unbeknownst to me, I was developing a rather vicious eye infection known as an acanthamoeba, which is a fancy way of saying […]

Columns, Poetry in Motion, Uncategorized

Poetry in Motion: Joe Brainard’s “I Remember” If It Was Entirely About Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

February 21, 2013 No Comments

In 1970, painter Joe Brainard crafted a highly unique memoir, beloved on arrival on his native Manhattan and beyond. It has become a cult classic, praised and imitated by the likes of Paul Auster, Kenneth Koch, and Georges Perec. Titled I Remember, Brainard’s book was a series of statements about his recalled life, all of which began with the phrase “I remember”. But what, I remember wondering, might Brainard’s book have looked like if each passage had been about famed […]