Poetry and Sports
When a person thinks of sports, distinctive and vivid images come to their mind. The same can be said about poetry; it has the ability to conjure up very creative images in our minds. It is interesting to think about the fact that have the two disciplines of sport and poetry ever been combined into a wonderful flowing and colourful set of images for fans of poetry and sports to both enjoy.
For the first time in the history of Wimbledon, a court poet will grace the tournament. This seems to be fitting because Wimbledon is one of the important tennis events on the world circuit. From its humble beginnings in 1877 to its current format, Wimbledon has always seemed a bit more refined and dignified than its counterparts. The fact that royalty can be seen in attendance and there is a dress code in place for competitors all make Wimbledon more exclusive than the other tournaments in tennis.
So it seems pretty natural that the organisers of the tennis tournament would invite a poet to be a part of the proceedings. Poet Matt Harvey has been appointed as the court poet for Wimbledon and he will be producing a poem a day in honour of the tournament. His poems will focus on the many different aspects of the game and will try to highlight the beauty and passion that the sport of tennis brings out in people. His poems will be read to people waiting to buy tickets, before the matches start and he will maintain a blog of poetry on the Wimbledon website. It is very interesting to think that poetry and sports are being merged like this.
That is the uniting factor about sports and poetry. Poetry is a process of invoking strong images in us and we feel the same way about sports. We feel alive after reading a good poem and people can get feelings of ecstasy when they watch their favourite sport. It seems poetry and sports have a bit of a hidden history, it is out there but it is not very well known. Poems have been written about baseball and the passion and emotion it brings out of people. Similarly many poems have been written about cricket and the love people feel for the game.
Donald Hall is a notable American wrote and he wrote many poems about baseball. The passion he felt for the game was felt in the way he wrote his poems and the manner and style that they were written in. He managed to capture all the emotions and heartache and joy that go along with one of America's favourite sports. He has also written a book about baseball in addition to his poetry about the sport. Sports give many writers a great subject to write about and it offers poets endless imagery to choose from. Baseball is a sport that has captivated America for years and it is natural that poems will be written about it in its honour.
Cricket is another sport that has seen its fair share of poetry. It seems that cricket is a very beautiful game that has inspired many poets over the years to write about it. The fact that cricket is part of England's culture and heritage, brings out many verses dedicated to the game that people love so much.
Football does not seem like the kind of sport that would inspire beautiful words written about it, but that is missing the point. The point about writing lines in honour of a sport is how people feel about the sport and not how the sport is played. The first resident poet at a football club was Ian McMillan at Barnsley Football Club. Football chants were almost like tribal poetry and in ancient times when an athlete would win a race, he would recite a poem. These facts brought about the first poet dedicated to writing poetry for a football club. Sadly these days, the only kinds of poetry that might be associated with football would be limericks.
Sports bring out all sorts of emotions in people; from joy to anger to sadness. These emotions are captured beautifully in poetry and the fact that poetry helps to bring out our emotions as well makes the marriage of poetry and sports a very successful one. Hopefully we will see more sports employing resident poets and maybe in the future more poetry will become a part of the sports that people love. Sports could bring about a much needed revival of poetry in the years to come.
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