Monday, August 11, 2008

How to Play Night Baseball

Sara K. -- ShysterBall's Minister of Culture, Arts & Letters -- writes: "A key difference between baseball and football overlooked by Carlin - baseball has been the subject of far better poetry." She's right, of course, and the example she points to is an excellent one which I had never read before, called "How to Play Night Baseball" by Jonathan Holden.

My respect for copyrights is admittedly erratic, but I feel like doing the right thing here and pointing you to a reproduction of it on Holden's own website rather than simply cutting and pasting it like some common pirate. If you have five minutes to spend and don't plan on driving or operating any heavy machinery, you can hear Garrison Keillor's somewhat narcotic voice read it on this past Saturday's Writer's Almanac here.

3 comments:

Levi Stahl said...

I actually wrote on this very topic, baseball and poetry, last October for the Poetry Foundation. I wish I'd known Holden's poem then.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Levi. That was fantastic!

Craig Calcaterra said...

Agreed. Thanks Levi! I liked it so much I just put up a post about it.