The end of summer approaches and, with it, the end of the baseball season. This blog celebrated the triplet (baseball, mathematics, poetry) on 9 April 2010, featuring samples from and links to poems by Marianne Moore and Jerry Wemple. Today we herald the same trio, this time with "Night Game" by Jonathan Holden.
Night Game by Jonathan Holden
These infielders are definite
as sparrows at work.
Split that seed with one peck
or starve.
There is no minor league
for birds. There is
exactly one way
to pirouette into a double play
perfectly. The birds
don't dare reflect on what
they do, each hop,
each stab and
scramble through the air into the
catch of the sycamore's
top twigs
is a necessity,
absolute. To stay alive
out in the field, you'd be
an authority on parabolas
and fear philosophy.
"Night Game" is found in Holden's chapbook, UR-MATH (State Street Press Chapbooks, 1997). Other poems by Jonathan Holden may be found in 2011 postings for January 22, February 18, and May 4. You may also enjoy his essay,"Poetry and Mathematics," published in The Georgia Review in 1985 and more recently available in The Measured Word: On Poetry and Science" (ed. Kurt Brown, UGA Press, 2001).
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Baseball, math, and poetry
Labels:
baseball,
Jerry Wemple,
Jonathan Holden,
Marianne Moore,
mathematics,
parabola,
poetry
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