Conference 7.286::sports_90

335.0. "Sports Lit 101" by SHALOT::MEDVID (stars come down in you) Fri Aug 17 1990 07:20

    We are about to embark on another weekend of exhibition football, and
    in a few weeks the college boys will be taking to the grid iron.  
    Baskin Robins will begin selling Quarterback Crunch.  Autumn will bring
    its cool days, and the smell of burning leaves will fill the air. 
    There is something about this time of year, this beginning of what we
    call FOOTBALL SEASON that keeps my passion for sport high throughout
    the year.
    
    And with all the above traditions and seasonal events, I also pull from
    my shelf and read my favorite poem of all time.  It is not Whitman,
    Malory, Keats, Tennyson.  No, those gentlemen never wrote about
    football and its relationship to life.  Gentlemen and ladies, I present
    to you my favorite poem.  Enjoy:
    
    
    
    
    AUTUMN BEGINS IN MARTINS FERRY, OHIO
    
    		by James Wright
    
    In the Shreve High football stadium,
    I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
    And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
    And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
    Dreaming of heroes.
    
    All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
    Their women cluck like starved pullets,
    Dying for love.
    
    Therefore,
    Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
    At the beginning of October,
    And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
    
    						1963

    VERY INTERESTING!!  I ENJOYED YOUR POEM.  I LAUGHED. I CRIED.  I GIVE
    IT TWO THUMBS UP!!        
    
    
                                                    FABE