Full Description
Bill Littlefield plays games even as he writes about them, or talks about them on his nationally syndicated NPR radio program, Only a Game. He unabashedly versifies not for profit, or a championship cup, but for fun. He makes no bones about it: these verses are doggerel. From mumblety-peg to the Olympics, from the bedrooms of aspiring nine-year-olds to the boardrooms of sports executives, his imagination and playfulness illuminate the rings, rinks, fields, and frustrations of sports and games.
What Racers Do
Racers race. That's what they do,
And they are fast, and noisy, too.
(Of quiet they are quite bereft,
Driving fast and turning left.)
Through headphones, as they speed along,
They hear instructions like a song
Screeching in the treble clef:
"Keep driving fast and turning left!"
Precisely where it had begun,
The race will end. It will be won,
For someone opposite of last
Kept turning left and driving fast.
"What is it about rhyme? Whatever it is, we fall in love with it (if ever) early in life: as soon as we learn to talk, or probably sooner. The same can be said about love for sports. By bringing together these two forms of attachment, the clever Littlefield reminds us that poetry and sports, at a level deeper than their different kinds of grandiosity, both have roots in childhood pleasures."—Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
While we confidently expect children to delight in them, we offer them for adults. Take Me Out takes us out to the ball game, to the chess match, to the squash court, in rain and shine.
BILL LITTLEFIELD is the host of NPR and WBUR's sports show, Only a Game,which is syndicated to some 200 public radio stations around the country. The author of several books on sports, two novels and two collections of his radio and magazine commentaries, he is writer-in-residence at Currey College, where he teaches one course each semester. A graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Littlefield began broadcasting sports commentary on WBUR (Boston) in 1984.
STEPHEN COREN is a graphic designer, artist, web developer and video producer who lives in the Boston area.
Contents
PUBLISHER'S COIN TOSS
I
GAME DAY
PLANE VIEW
THE VOCABULARY OF SPORTS
IMAGINING A GAME
THEY MIGHT NOT BE GIANTS
"BEST OF" SHOW
ON APPRECIATION
ON BEING A FAN
THE NATURAL
TO BE A BALL
FAIR PLAY
AN OWNER OWNS
II
ZIPPY CHIPPY: A HORSE COMPLETE
RACING DAYS
SWIMMING
SWIMMING . . . SORT OF
RHYMING GOLF
GOLF HERO
LIL
CROQUET MADNESS
A TIME TO RUN
WHAT RACERS DO
LACROSSE
ROLLER DERBY
DERBY ROLLING
WHACK IT
POLO
NO POLE VAULTING FOR ME
BOWLING
RISKY GAMES
CHESS IN THE KITCHEN
III
FOOTBALL FOR EVERYONE?
THE THANKSGIVING DAY GAME
SUPER BOWL
I DO NOT LOVE THEE
IV
WILLIE MAYS
A SHORT POEM DEDICATED TO THE CELEBRATION OF AN AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING DURING WHICH THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM REPRESENTING THE CITIES OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS MANAGED TO SECURE TWO VICTORIES
OUT AT THE BALL GAME
THE DISAPPEARING FAN
ANIMAL PLAYERS
BASEBALL CARDS
V
MOM, I'M GOING TO BE A STAR
SEVEN-YEAR OLD SOCCER PLAYER
KICKING A ROCK
A SHORT REFUTATION OF THE ANCIENT WISDOM THAT PARENTS HAVE PASSED ALONG TO THOSE OF THEIR CHILDREN WHOM THEY CAUGHT PLAYING A GAME THAT REQUIRED COMPETITORS TO USE VARIOUS PARTS OF THEIR BODIES TO CAUSE A JACKKNIFE TO STICK INTO THE GROUND
MARBLES AND BARBELLS
POGO STICKING
VI
ALL STARS
WHY IT'S EASIER TO BE A SPORTSWRITER THAN AN ATHLETE
INDEX
