It's About Run: A Baseball Poem

THOUGH IT'S HARD TO acknowledge baseball while there is still so much good basketball out in the world, I thought it might be nice to augment the basketball poems with a fine baseball one. Written by May Swenson, the poem is as much about poetry as it is about baseball. The poems sounds mimic not simply the rhythmic sounds of baseball but also the rhythm of other poems. What's more, the poem's form (how it looks on the page or on this screen) is long and cylindrical, like a baseball bat or a foul pole.

Best of all, the poem, like baseball and poetry, is just fun.

ANALYSIS OF BASEBALL

It's about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn't
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.
Bat waits
for ball
to mate.
Ball hates
to take bat's
bait. Ball
flirts, bat's
late, don't
keep the date.
Ball goes in
(thwack) to mitt,
and goes out
(thwack) back
to mitt.
Ball fits
mitt, but
not all
the time.
Sometimes
ball gets hit
(pow) when bat
meets it,
and sails
to a place
where mitt
has to quit
in disgrace.
That's about
the bases
loaded,
about 40,000
fans exploded.
It's about
the ball,
the bat,
the mitt,
the bases
and the fans.
It's done
on a diamond,
and for fun.
It's about
home, and it's
about run.

Thanks to the Writer's Almanac who sent the poem and who reminds us that yesterday, May 28, was May Swenson's birthday.