NPR's Morning Edition and LARB Celebrate the Olympics with Poetry

Happily, the Poetry Parnassus seems to have inspired a wellspring of poetic events.

First, NPR's Morning Edition is hosting a poetry competition every morning next week, somewhat in the style of the original Olympics in ancient Greece:

From the far reaches of the globe, we've invited poets to compose original works celebrating athletes and athletics. Each morning next week, we'll introduce a new poem on Morning Edition, and then you, the audience, will judge who should win the victor's laurel crown.

Stay tuned! You can listen to the contests here.

Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry Editor Gabrielle Calvocoressi has announced a discussion, rather than a contest, of athletic prowess:

Contrary to popular belief, poets are some of the most avid sports fans around. I’ve wondered about it for a long time and I’ve decided that there’s no better time or place to consider the question of what draws poets to sports than the 2012 Summer Games. Starting with the opening ceremonies on July 27th some of the most interesting poets and poet-critics in the country (and a few from the UK) will talk about, sports and poetry — what it is to do something really well and what it is to risk failure on the world’s largest stage. We’ll hear about archery and synchronized swimming, boxing and basketball. We’ll have coverage of what we’ll be calling “The Ghost Sports,” the sports that used to be in the Olympics and aren’t any more, because I suppose I can understand why we don’t play baseball at the Games but I am bamboozled by the fact that we don’t play cricket.

Participants in this series include Paisley Rekdal, A. Van Jordan, Matthea Harvey and Kwame Dawes. Follow their discussion here.