The COVID-19 Poetry Challenge

Poet / author Phil Fitzpatrick

On Memorial Day I received an interesting email from a writer/poet friend with The COVID-19 Poetry Challenge in the subject line. Naturally this intrigued me. His email began like this:

Dear Friends of Poetry, near and far,

Welcome to the COVID19 Poetry Challenge, an interactive, tournament-style elimination game in which 32 well-crafted poems (see below) about writing poetry are gradually whittled down to a Crowd Favorite, the champion, if you will. This is purely for enjoyment; no literary criticism is required or requested, implicitly or explicitly.

The tournament matches the format of the NCAA's March Madness playoffs in that poems are paired off in brackets and each week teams (poems in this case) get eliminated.

I love creativity of all stripes, and as a method for sharing great poetry with fans of poetry, this was truly a rewarding ploy.

The first four weeks will feature the Regionals, beginning with the Lift Bridge Regional, May 25-31. Poems competing in this first round are as follows, though not in this order.

1. Alexander, Elizabeth -- “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”

2. Frank O’Hara -- “Why I Am Not a Painter”

3. Berry, Wendell -- “How to Be a Poet”

4. Bly, Robert -- “Words Rising”

5. Bukowski, Charles -- “So You Want to Be a Writer?”

6. Collins, Billy -- “Workshop”

7. Collins, Billy -- “The Trouble with Poetry: A Poem of Explanation”

8. Dickinson, Emily -- “Tell the Truth, but Tell It Slant”

Other regionals have names like The Hawk Ridge Regional, the Hobey Baker Regional, and the Poet Laureate Regional.

As soon as I received this email I couldn't help but start my day by reading all eight poems in the Lift Bridge Regional. There were no easy decisions here, all eight poems being worthy of a vote. Each decision came down to the wire, one game going into overtime.

Billy Collins is always a fun read, so I will end this by sharing one of his here.

Workshop

Not Billy Collins

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.

It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now

so immediately the poem has my attention,

like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,

the way they establish this mode of self-pointing

that runs through the whole poem

and tells us that words are food thrown down

on the ground for other words to eat.

I can almost taste the tail of the snake

in its own mouth,

if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice,

which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,

but other times seems standoffish,

professorial in the worst sense of the word

like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.

But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,

especially the fourth one.

I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges

which gives me a very clear picture.

And I really like how this drawbridge operator

just appears out of the blue

with his feet up on the iron railing

and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging—

a hook in the slow industrial canal below.

I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s.

Maybe it’s just me,

but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.

I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?

And what’s an obbligato of snow?

Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.

At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,

and maybe this is just me,

is the way the scene keeps shifting around.

First, we’re in this big aerodrome

and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,

which makes me think this could be a dream.

Then he takes us into his garden,

the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,

though that’s nice, the coiling hose,

but then I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be.

The rain and the mint green light,

that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?

Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?

There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here

is really two poems, or three, or four,

or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.

This is where the poem wins me back,

especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.

I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,

but I still love the details he uses

when he’s describing where he lives.

The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,

the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,

the spool of thread for a table.

I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work

night after night collecting all these things

while the people in the house were fast asleep,

and that gives me a very strong feeling,

a very powerful sense of something.

But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.

Maybe that was just me.

Maybe that’s just the way I read it.

* * * *

Thanks, Phil for the thought-provoking and entertaining diversion. I can hardly wait till we get to the Final Four.

Related Links
Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
Bill Collins, Poet Laureate
Phil Fitzpatrick Talks About His New Book of Poems, Hawks on High: Everyday Miracles in a Hawk Ridge Season
Three Feet Away by Phil Fitzpatrick

Meantime, he not busy bein' born is busy dying.

The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Trevino -- The Hispanic Yogi Berra of Golf

It's March Madness which means that during our lunch hour the restaurant we were in had several monitors displaying NCAA basketball playoff games. During one of the commercial breaks we were reminded that The Masters, one of pro golf's premiere events, is just around the corner. This triggered a debate between two of the men at our table. Topic: What is the greatest single sporting event championship in the world? No one dared suggest Super Bowl, though I was inwardly wondering whether soccer's World Cup might qualify. The golfer at our table declared it to be the Masters. His opponent placed his bet on America's Cup, whereupon this comment was made: "Yacht racing? That's like watching paint dry" along with several follow-up barbs.

While these jokes were being made at the expense of America's Cup, my mind slid back to a handful of golf-themed memories from my youth. Golf had been one of my father's passions, so we were introduced to the game quite early. When we were kids in Cleveland he'd drive us to a certain stretch of forest adjacent to golf course where he'd have us do a scavenger hunt for golf balls. He knew exactly where to have us look, because a few of these may have been his at one time.

I later caddied for a couple years while in high school, and enjoyed the benefit of playing for free on Mondays. Though my skills never advanced beyond being a hack, I enjoyed the game and followed the pro circuit enough (via Sports Illustrated and televised tournament golf) to know who the name were. My dad was part of Arnie's Army, the nickname given to the fans and followers of that golf great whose chief adversary (and respected friend) was the "Golden Bear" Jack Nicklaus. I myself liked the South African Gary Player, in part because he always wore black, like an outlaw of sorts.

And then, there was Lee Trevino.

Lee Trevino

Here's the story about Lee Trevino that most stood out for me. Before turning pro he used to make money by putting money on the game. I believe I read in Sports Illustrated that he had a giant Pepsi bottle that he used to play golf with. He would bet against other golfers that he could beat them using only a Pepsi bottle against their full set of clubs. He purportedly made pretty good that way. If I have my facts right, this may have been what pushed him to compete in the pros.

His achievements were many, and in 1971 he became the first player to win the U.S. Open, British Open and Canadian Open the same year. In fact, he did it in a three-week span.

Trevino also had another unusual threesome. He has been purportedly struck by lightning three times, one of them during the 1975 Western Open. The odds of being struck by lightning during your lifetime, for what it's worth, are 300,000 to one, though I'm guessing your odds might improve considerably if you're routinely out on a fairway when storms roll in.

Lee Trevino grew up very poor. He has no memory of his father who abandoned the family while he was very you. At age five he was helping bring in an income picking cotton. How he emerged from these roots to become an elite golfer is a tale for another place in time.

Baseball fans are well acquainted with the Yogi Berra's Yogi-isms. (Susie and I frequently recite his restaurant quip, "No one eats there anymore because it's too busy.") Lee Trevino's way with words can be equally entertaining. Here are ten Trevino statements to get you started.

1. The older I get, the better I used to be.

2. If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.

3. Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket.

4. When you're poor, you know nothing about the future, you know nothing about the world, nothing that goes on outside 300 yards around you.

5. You're Mexican until you make money and then you're Spanish.

6. Golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of a bagpipe.

7. My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch.

8. I'm not out there just to be dancing around. I expect to win every time I tee up.

9. I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced.

10. Every golfer should come to the first tee with fourteen clubs, a dozen balls, a handful of tees, and at least one great golf story.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Give it your best shot.

Photo courtesy Creative Commons.