Comments on: First Loves

By: Major

Major — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:16:21 +0000

Sheryl,
I hear Sherman is a really good baller, too. I hope someday, we can hoop it up a bit. To write as compellingly as he does, I wonder if one has to be that close to the game. In any event, I agree about that unmarketable joy; no one can take it away, but I’d wish more people took as much delight as we do.
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By: Major

Major — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:09:36 +0000

Francisco,
Thanks for turning me on to Kleinzahler’s bball poem. It has to be one of the best poems I’ve read by him. I’m off to read it in full.
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By: Major

Major — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:06:12 +0000

Lillian! It’s not too late! (smiles)
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By: Sheryl Luna

Sheryl Luna — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:11:30 +0000

I understand the credit/debit approach with which you approach this post! Some days I wish I would have studied accounting or medicine or law honestly rather than writing. But you are right about the enjoyment poetry brings, and it is a hard sell in our capitalistic society. I keep trying to remind myself about this un-marketable joy, and in the end it is the one thing nobody can ever take away from us as artists.
One poet who wrote about basketball and actually influenced me is Sherman Alexie. I was influenced by an image of dark lanky Indian ball players jumping through the air gloriously like salmon. It’s an image that stays with me. I was never good at basketball and only watched it fleetingly on television, but there is almost a poetic movement when an athlete takes to the air like Magic.
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By: Jenny Browne

Jenny Browne — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:57:06 +0000

Being a native Hoosier, all this b-ball talk rings close to my hooping heart. Thanks for sharing the Kleinzahler poem. I know and love much of his work but this is new to me. And wonderful.
p.s. I live in San Antonio now, home of the champs. Go Spurs Go!
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By: Francisco Aragón

Francisco Aragón — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:21:32 +0000

Thank you for bringing up this poem. Basketball was my passion during grade and high school (1974-1984). I loved those epic seven-game battles between the Celtics and the Lakers. And I remember when Doctor J and the sixers finally got past the Celtics to win it all. Edward Hirsch has a wonderful basketball poem I’ve taught, whose title is escaping me, in couplets, whose final image is the ball swishing through the net. Yusef has a pretty good one too.
But probably my favorite poem that takes basketball as its subject doesn’t involve pros, but rather: a portrait of the speaker simply shooting around. It’s called, simply, “Shooting”. And yet, the poem didn’t make it into _Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club_: August Kleinzahler’s Selected Poems published by F,S&G in 2000.
The poem appeared in _Storm Over Hackensack_, published by Moyer Bell in 1985. One of the devices the poem employs is the repetition of the word “hit” (which is italicized) to great effect. Some excerpts:
The sun is high
and the blacktop soft so Hit
first from the corner
then from the key
because your hand is hot
and no one’s watching
*
Hit
after dark and the stars shall
illumine
Put moves on the locals
They’ll make you a god
Hit for the sake of it
for the music of hitting
*
And it ends:
Hit for the rhythm
that finds you and lifts you
The ball is a planet
and you make it go
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By: lillian

lillian — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:02:01 +0000

i was so positive i was going to be a business major. i was a state champion and national contender in the business and marketing club. and then along came bukowski and adrienne rich.
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