Research Catalog

Title

The sporting muse : a critical study of poetry about athletes and athletics / Don Johnson.

Author

Johnson, Don, 1942-

Publication

Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., [2004], ©2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

171 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"Scholars of popular culture know that sports - how they are conceived, organized, played, and celebrated - can teach us much about society. In this study of contemporary American sports poetry, Don Johnson considers what we can learn from the poems that sports have inspired." "From tribal victory chants to Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" to the poems of the twenty-first century, the study first considers the history of sports poetry. With detailed readings of many poems, individual chapters focus on poems about baseball; football; basketball; women's sports; golf, racquet sports, and boxing; and fans and spectators." "This study demonstrates that a considerable body of sports poetry exists in American culture, and offers that poetry the serious analysis it deserves."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• American poetry > History and criticism
• Athletics in literature
• Athletes in literature
• Sports in literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-161) and index.

Contents

I. "Who the Hell Are You, Kid?" Language, Nostalgia and Identity in the Baseball Poem -- II. I "End-Zones Scored with Darkness": The Football Poem -- III. Courtly Love, or The Sound of One Hand Shooting: The Basketball Poem -- IV. Pulling Together: Women's Sports Poems -- V. Small Balls, Microcosmic Courts, and Squared Circles: Poems about Golf, Racquet Sports, and Boxing -- VI. The Fat Man and Other Spectators: Poems about Fans.

ISBN

0786417676 (softcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

2004004056

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries