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Sports poetry can cover any sport and be in any tone or form. The epenicion was an early form of sports poetry, honoring victors of the Hellenic games. Baseball has inspired a lot of American sports poetry, including “Casey at the Bat” and the baseball haiku. All sports involve conquering something, giving them drama and excitement.
Sports poetry can be about any sport. There is poetry about baseball and basketball and football. Fly fishing, swimming, soccer, and different types of racing can be the subject of poetry. The tone of sports poetry can be inspirational, dramatic, humorous, or tragic. It can also be in any form, from sonnets and rhyming poems to free verse and haiku.
One of the earliest forms of sports poetry was the epenicion. It was a Greek lyrical ode honoring a victor of the Hellenic games. The word comes from a Greek adjective meaning “for a victory”. The earliest known example of the form was written by Simonides of Ceos in 520 BC for the winner of a boxing match. Traditionally, an epenicion was sung to the victor by a choir accompanied by lutes. The epenicion became such a big part of the games that athletes began commissioning poets to write them.
While sports poetry can have many subjects and tones, they all seem to share the spirit of conquering something. It can be a fish, an animal or a worthy opponent. All sports involve the tension of overcoming something, which gives them drama, tension and excitement.
In the United States, baseball is considered the “national pastime,” with the sport’s popularity unquestioned. The game has inspired a large body of poetry. American poet Marianne Moore’s “Baseball and Writing” is about why both endeavors are exciting. Her poem contains the lines “Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting/and baseball is like writing.”
A poem considered one of the classic works of American sports poetry is about baseball. Written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, “Casey at the Bat” is said to capture the drama, humor and sometimes disappointment of the game. When a confident and determined Casey comes down to the plate, it’s his team’s last hope for a win. The poem ends with “And somewhere the men laugh, and somewhere the children cry/But there’s no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck.”
The expansion of baseball into Asian countries has spawned a new form of sports poetry, the baseball haiku. Haiku is a form of Japanese lyrical verse. It consists of three lines of five, seven and five syllables. Traditionally used to write about nature, haiku has been adapted to baseball by both Japanese and American poets. The Japanese poet Yatsuya Ryu writes of his devotion to the game that “until I am lifted up to heaven/I will go to fields of green/wearing my glove”.
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