Here it is:
Jack Spicer
from: FOUR POEMS FOR THE ST LOUIS SPORTING NEWS
4.
God is big white baseball that has nothing to do but go in a
curve or a straight line. I studied geometry in highschool
and know that this is true.
Given these facts the pitcher, the batter, and the catcher all look
pretty silly. No Hail Marys
Are going to get you out of a p;osition with the bases loaded and
no outs, or when you're 0 and 2, or when the ball bounces
out to the screen wildly. Off seasons
I often thought of praying to him but could not stand the
thought of that big, white, round, omipotent bastard.
Yet he's there. As the game follows rules he makes them.
I know
I was not the only one who felt these things.
***
funny that this discussion should come up today... this afternoon son
Miles & I drove out to a Dick's shop (well-named, and eliciting endless
giggles from the 12 year old) & bought half a dozen baseball, new
batting gloves for him, and a new glove for myself, then threw balls
with wild abandon & great pleasure until it was too dark to see the big
white ball (with raised seams, which I am not sure God has, or at least
they'd be one of his attributes I didn't know about) -- Pierre
On Apr 7, 2005, at 9:31 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> Pierre: The poem in question is in A Book of Magazine Verse. It's one
> of
> the poems for the St Louis Sports Dispatch. If your books are
> available it
> might be good to send the poem along to the group. The line in
> question, if
> memory doesn't garble too much, is "God is a big fat white baseball."
>
>
> At 08:57 PM 4/7/2005, you wrote:
>> Spicer, I think, said that the poets thought they were pitchers when
>> in
>> effect they were only catchers.
>>
>> Pierre
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2005, at 7:07 PM, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>>
>>> { I'm an atheist, which means that god is an expletive. Expletives
>>> are
>>> { genderless and impartial. Spicer famously claimed that god is a
>>> baseball,
>>> { but he may have been joking.
>>>
>>> Methinks he was a slider--or maybe a knuckleball.
>>>
>>> Hal "Poetic statements are no more actual statements
>>> than the peaches visible in a still life are actual
>>> dessert."
>>> --Susanne K. Langer
>>>
>>> Halvard Johnson
>>> ===============
>>> email: [log in to unmask]
>>> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
>>> blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/
>>>
>> =================================================
>> "Lyric poetry has to be exorbitant or not at all." -- Gottfried Benn
>> =================================================
>> For updates on readings, etc. check my current events page:
>> http://albany.edu/~joris/CurrentEvents.html
>> =================================================
>> Pierre Joris
>> 244 Elm Street
>> Albany NY 12202
>> h: 518 426 0433
>> c: 518 225 7123
>> o: 518 442 40 85
>> email: [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
>> =================================================
>
>
=================================================
"Lyric poetry has to be exorbitant or not at all." -- Gottfried Benn
=================================================
For updates on readings, etc. check my current events page:
http://albany.edu/~joris/CurrentEvents.html
=================================================
Pierre Joris
244 Elm Street
Albany NY 12202
h: 518 426 0433
c: 518 225 7123
o: 518 442 40 85
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
=================================================
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