“We should start back,” said Tebros, pointing to a swift military formation scratched onto a scroll. The scrimmage yards told a grim tale: third and eight after an incomplete pass. His fellow Paytriotes shrugged and shuffled their feet across the Training Camp’s field of battle, like timid trolls scared to enter a line dance with vixens.
Poetry in Motion: A Steroid Diary
Sunday, February 17th I’m looking for Human Growth. Mackendrick says not to call it that. Call it “vitamins” he says. Don’t even write the word down, he says. “Are you writing my name?” he says. “Jesus Christ, stop writing down everything I’m saying.” Call it a birthday present from my Swiss cousin. Call it a live ferret. Anything but what it is, even though everyone uses them now. Nerds with allergies even. Ha ha ha.
Poetry in Motion: Ernest Hemingway, Drunk Sportsman (On Bullfighting, Motor Racing, and Mountain Climbing)
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 […]
Poetry in Motion: Jim Bouton, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the Athletics of Self-Awareness
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.
Poetry in Motion: Super Bowl XLVII Photobooth Edition – The Agony of Victory, The Ecstasy of Defeat
How one handles success and failure often speaks greater volumes than the outcome of one’s challenge, particularly if that challenge is something as relatively lighthearted as the Super Bowl. Even in coping with the hardship of an immensely public shortcoming, the losing team isn’t exactly a fleet of trapped Chilean miners, non? There are unexpected challenges to winning the big game, and inherent optimism to be found in a loss. With the help of visual aids, in the tradition […]
Poetry in Motion: Letter from a Framingham Jail – An Imprisoned Patriots Fan Speaks Out
(as told to Nick Curley, via exclusive interview.) FRAMINGHAM, MA – Watching the ’98 Honda Accord I torched outside the Cask ‘N Flagon go up in flames, I couldn’t help but see Tom Brady’s impeccable cheekbones among the whispering embers. The final seconds of Sunday’s American Football Conference Championship felt like getting pelted by ice chunks during elementary school games of King of the Mountain all over again. It’s funny how sometimes, in sports, fire is like ice.
Poetry in Motion – The Literature of Basketball, Weeks 3 & 4: Meet the Houston Rockets’ New Starter, Donald Barthelme
Despite a win-loss record of 9-8, the Houston Rockets this week emerged as the internet’s new favorite team. On Yahoo’s blog Ball Don’t Lie, Eric Freeman has devoted serious e-ink and cautious optimism to the Rockets, hyping their big off-season acquisition James Harden as “if not a bona fide superstar, then at least an excellent player who could be a first option on a pretty good playoff team.” Bethlehem Shoals asked on Twitter last week if the Rockets were this […]