Our January 2022 session on sports and games covered a range of pursuits from ‘Clumps’ to skiing.
John Betjeman’s ‘Indoor games near Newbury’ – including the Clumps – is not so effective or memorable as the same poet’s popular ‘A subaltern’s love-song’, which brilliantly evokes the English upper middle class life of tennis and golf clubs.
Tennis is also the inspiration (along with Pam Ayres) for Chris Short’s ‘Balls’, which can be found elsewhere in this site.
In ‘Golfers’, John Updike finds himself in the club-house observing the antics and attitudes of the golfers with contempt.
Wendy Cope wonders how she came to befriend ‘Sporty people’; a pithy examination of prejudice.
An extract from Thomas Gray’s long ‘Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College’ with rowing and football, now seems overwrought and comic. ‘Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’ Obviously Boris Johnson took this to heart.
Henry Newbolt’s “Vitai lampada” with its motto ‘Play up! and play the game’ though also very much of its period still carries its message of commitment and courage convincingly.
Our own Ken Gambles read his ‘In a different league’, telling of the ups and downs of a football supporter. Another poem by a keen supporter (and one-time leader of the Labour Party) is Michael Foot’s sonnet ‘Ode to Everton‘.
Dannie Abse’s ‘The game’ has football as a struggle between good and evil, with his angelic team coping badly with the devilish tricks of the opposition.
Martin Hall’s ‘I’ll stand the lot of you’ is a delightful account of a kids’ irregular football game.
In AE Housman’s ‘Is my team ploughing?’ football goes on in the absence of the departed, as do other activities in field and bedroom. His ‘To an athlete dying young ‘ is more elegaic, less down to earth – although the athlete certainly goes down to earth.
Leslie Norris’s ‘The ballad of Billy Rose’ is a sad tale dealing with both football and boxing.
Robert Frost ‘s much loved ‘Birches’ develops a childhood pastime into fanciful and fun ideas.
Another simple childhood pursuit is sailing toy boats, as in Carol Ann Duffy’s charming ‘Ship’.
In ‘Dysfunction’ – a poem contained in a tweet – Brian Bilston excels as ever in clever rhymes. It feels like the start of a longer tale about board games and indeed he has extended the idea on his website.
Another very short poem was Harold Pinter’s about Len Hutton, which gave Simon Gray the opportunity for a good joke. Several other poems also celebrated cricket:
Francis Thompson’s ‘At Lord’s’ describes a long-past confrontation between his home team Lancashire and WG Grace’s Gloucestershire, in a strange archaic style.
In Wes McGee’s ‘Incident at the Oval’ a spectator has an experience at once meaningful and meaningless.
Drummond Allison’s sonnet ‘Verity’ memorialises the cricketer Hedley Verity who died serving in WW2. It’s a favourite poem of Ken’s, who read it in a previous ‘free choice’ session.
Rumi’s tale of the three fishes (from the Masnavi in Coleman Barks’ translation) involves the attempts of the wise, foolish and stupid fishes to avoid the anglers.
Les Murray’s hilarious “Downhill on borrowed skis” tells the tale of his poor performance in an extraordinary avalanche of expression.
For further reading how about John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Health Fanatic? You can find it online.