Prompt #111 – Sports Poems

Last night, I stayed up until almost midnight and watched the London Olympics' amazing opening ceremonies (see video at end of post). This morning, I woke thinking that it might be interesting to write about sports this week. Of course, not everyone is sports-minded (myself included), but sports play an important role in cultures throughout the world, so why not take up the "torch" and write about them?

When the Olympics began in ancient Greece, poetry was part of the “package.” Poets wrote works in praise of athletic champions, and often recited poems to large Olympic Game crowds. At those early Games, some of the athletes hired the best and most popular poets of the day to write victory odes, and poets of every stripe erected stalls or stood on “soapboxes” to recite their poems. The venue couldn’t have been better for them – imagine a poetry reading with an audience of thousands. However, in c. 388 BC, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse brought actors to the Games to recite his poetry, and his poems weren’t well-received. In fact, the crowd beat him up and destroyed his tent. 

Possibly the most famous sports poem is "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer.

Another famous baseball poem is  "Baseball and Writing" by Marianne Moore. 

Other examples:

"Sports Bacchanalia" by Raymond A. Foss

"This Year's May" by Edwin Romond

While baseball poems are arguably more abundant than other sports poems, the challenge this week is to choose a sport (any sport) and write a poem about it. 

1. The sport you choose may be one you enjoy or one you don’t like at all. 
2. You may use a sport as an extended metaphor in your poem (How Dieting Is a Spectator Sport). 
3. You may write about a sport in which you’ve participated, or you may write about a sport in which you would like to participate. 
4. You may write about your significant other’s obsession with golf (or football, or soccer, or baseball, or basketball), or you may write about your significant other’s annoying habit of watching a particular sport on TV. 
5. Another possibility is to write a poem about the Olympics (ancient, modern, or both). 
6. If you’ve never played sports and don’t care for sports at all, write a poem about that. 
7. You might think about sports heroes you consider worthy of praise and write about one of them. 
8. You might even take a humorous approach and write a funny sports poem. 
9. You might write a poem in which you compare a particular sport to poetry. 
10. Or, you might reflect on the ways in which trying to win poetry competitions is like trying to win sports competitions. 
11. Write a poem in which you list the rules for your own "Poetry Olympics." 
12. Write a poem in which you imagine the world without a single sport.

Have fun with this, and keep these sports synonyms in mind: recreational activity, entertainment, action, amusement, athletics, exercise, frolic, fun, fun and games, gaiety, physical activity, and play.

Click here to read an excellent article on poetry's relationship with the Olympics.