You may have seen this, especially if you are/were a Braves fan.
I think it's really good.
Really.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux
While my comments below--about how I stumbled on to the essay--won't stand the test of time, I assure you the poetry cited will.
Look, I know I have too much time on my hands. I spent too much time as a kid reading and now I spend too much time surfing the 'net. There were good reasons for the former I may go into at a later date. There are no good reasons for my internet addiction but sometimes, like yesterday, little literary miracles happen.
I was supposed to spend the lunch break grading a stack of 11th graders' essays on Seamus Heaney's "Digging"[1] and Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese"[2] and Robert Hass's "A Story About the Body."[3] Great poems, each of them, but I shrank from the task. Great as those poems are, they don't necessarily lead to great 11th grade essays.
In my moment of hesitation, apropos of nothing at all, the idea to craft my own poem skittered across my mind. Equally apropos of nothing, I thought a worthy project would be my own version of Wallace Stevens' poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." (Stevens' poem is posted below. Everyone should read it at least twice in their lifetime. Also, understanding this thread depends upon reading it. It’s not long. You’ll be okay).
My version would be called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Baseball."
It would be crafted with fear and trembling, lest I suffer a sickness unto death at the hands of Amohalko, THE God of Baseball Gods.[4] Despite my congenital (and congenial and, perhaps, ugh, congealing) humility, I would admit my poem's brilliance, and fake-modestly bow my head as tens of people (maybe even 100!), showered acclaim upon me like a winning team's clubhouse champagne.[5] I'd win prizes not only from the Poetry Foundation but also from Major League Baseball, which would give me [6] its inaugural "BUDAHH" Award.[7] A new wing would be built in Cooperstown in the shape of the first ever alphabet's [8] letter for W (for Writer): 𐤅 .
I would be just inside the front door.
To that end, I embarked upon an internet search to make sure I wasn't plagiarizing anyone else's work and stumbled across "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux". "Moved" by the essay doesn't really capture the depth of my response. The Italian "Ero profondamente commosso" does a better job.
When I find things like this I have to share them. Thank you.
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[3] Hass, "A Story About The Body"
[4] Amohalko's story may be shared at a later time, Amohalko-willing. Suffice it to say, they (Amohalko has no gender) are from the land of Ning, hence the origin of "inning," as in “Amohalko is in Ning."
[6] Since the award is all my idea.
[7]The Bouton-Updike-DeLillo-Angell-Halberstam Hack Award. It would be voted on only by bullpen catchers, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Due to their perfidy re: HOF voting, sportswriters are banished to the nosebleed bleacher seats.
[8] The Phoenician alphabet. Some would dispute this, arguing that the first alphabet consisted of hieroglyphics but I hold with the Phoenician school's focus on symbols representing sounds rather than images.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.