Poetry from Daily Life: Words can lurch, leap, dive and duck like your favorite athlete

This week’s guest on "Poetry from Daily Life” is Marjorie Maddox, who lives in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of the Little League World Series. Marjorie published her first poem in Campfire Girl Magazine at the age of 8. She writes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and children’s literature. Recently, she loved writing "In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind," a collaboration with her artist daughter, Anna Lee Hafer (www.hafer.work) and other artists. A unique fact about Marjorie is that she is the great grand-niece of Branch Rickey, the famed general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. ~ David L. Harrison

Pick up a ball, pick up a pencil — have fun

Here’s to the poetry of the game: the way that baseball’s lyricism has us stretching, soaring, diving, sliding, yearning to touch again the base of home! And here’s to the grip, dribble, and swish of basketball; the huddle, rush, and calculus of football; the glide, bump, and pivot of hockey; the heartbeat chug of the long-distance runner; and the two exclamation points of adventure as the bold skier pushes off from mountain toward sky.

There’s a reason the line drive and the line dance celebrate the form. It's all motion, grace, risk, transcendence, and the return to the familiar — poetic muscles ready to, once more, give it a throw or a twirl.

And here’s to the game in poetry! The way words lurch and leap, wave their seraphs and shout, “Choose me! Choose me!” or trial-and-error their way to touchdown.

Like other forms of fun, their diligent workouts disguise themselves as play. They sniff their way into being, then scout out everything in sight, all the while listening attentively to their author-coach, to their subconscious, or just to the mesmerizing game blaring at that exact moment from the radio.

True, their images, passed from stanza to stanza, soar smoothly, land in the reader’s open palm — but oh, if they don’t seem to appear miraculously from the heavens, announcing the perfect play we’ve always known but just now recognize and claim.

It all begins with fun. Return to the joy of rhythm and the delight of play. Savor the satisfaction of puzzle. Frolic with sound. Take up a pencil and pogo-stick it across the page. Bounce into your favorite game. I’ll just wait over here. I’ll be the one on the sidelines next to the baseball poem, the faithful fan loudly cheering you on.

Home Run

Anything less is a slice.

Hungry, you want the whole pie.

With the ball out of sight past the wall,

you crave every last crumb of the run

as you trot with arms held high

from plate to plate to plate,

all the way back to Home,

your fans deliciously happy,

stuffed full of satisfaction,

unable to ask for one bite more

of such scrumptious summer joy.

Marjorie Maddox is the author of 20 books, including "Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems," in which “Home Run” first appeared. She is the 2023-2024 radio host of WPSU’s Poetry Moment, assistant poetry editor of Presence, and co-editor of two anthologies on Pennsylvania. Find out more at www.marjoriemaddox.com

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Poetry from Daily Life: Wield a pencil like a ball bat — swing away