BASEBALL AND WRITING (Excerpt)
by Marianne Moore
…Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement –
a fever in the victim –
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply
Who is excited? Might it be I?
Photo: Poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) throwing out the first pitch of the NY Yankees’ 1968 season.
George Plimpton — a founder of The Paris Review — writing in PEN America 4: Fact/Fiction explained how he overcame writer’s block:
Many years ago, I met John Steinbeck at a party in Sag Harbor, and told him that I had writer’s block. And he said something which I’ve always remembered, and which works. He said, “Pretend that you’re writing not to your editor or to an audience or to a readership, but to someone close, like your sister, or your mother, or someone that you like.” And at the time I was enamored of Jean Seberg, the actress, and I had to write an article about taking Marianne Moore to a baseball game, and I started it off, “Dear Jean…,” and wrote this piece with some ease, I must say. And to my astonishment that’s the way it appeared in Harper’s Magazine. “Dear Jean…” Which surprised her, I think, and me, and very likely Marianne Moore.
Photo: Jean Seberg in a scene from Breathless (1960)
BASEBALL AND WRITING (Excerpt)
Poem by Marianne Moore
…Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement —
a fever in the victim —
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply
Who is excited? Might it be I?
Photo: Poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) throwing out the first pitch of the NY Yankees’ 1968 season.
Silver Birch Press 