.For a closer view of this detail click here. For the whole tryptich click here.
The Adoration of anything you think you own is idolatrous.
The Adoration of anything you think you own, even Poetry, even Baseball, is idolatrous because, like the Critic on his knees in this painting, the fire’s in your own head. You worship at the shrine but you’re looking not into it but out at us. You’re looking back at your audience to be sure they’ll know how astute and well-informed you are, and, of course, how properly dressed. In turn, your ‘readers’ have a choice — to play ball or cry FIRE!
With regard to baseball, the strange beauty and fascination of it have never been explored more deeply than in the following poem. So what is it? And why has the discussion of poetry on Scarriet becoming so ugly and savage?
Christopher Woodman
.
………………………..The Crowd at the Ball Game
………………………..The crowd at the ball game
………………………..is moved uniformly
………………………..by a spirit of uselessness
………………………..which delights them —
………………………..all the exciting detail
………………………..of the chase
………………………..and the escape, the error
………………………..the flash of genius —
………………………..all to no end save beauty
………………………..the eternal –
………………………..So in detail they, the crowd,
………………………..are beautiful
………………………..for this
………………………..to be warned against
………………………..saluted and defied —
………………………..It is alive, venomous
………………………..it smiles grimly
………………………..its words cut —
………………………..The flashy female with her
………………………..mother, gets it —
………………………..The Jew gets it straight – it
………………………..is deadly, terrifying —
………………………..It is the Inquisition, the
………………………..Revolution
………………………..It is beauty itself
………………………..that lives
………………………..day by day in them
………………………..idly —
………………………..This is
………………………..the power of their faces
………………………..It is summer, it is the solstice
………………………..the crowd is
………………………..cheering, the crowd is laughing
………………………..in detail
………………………..permanently, seriously
………………………..without thought
………………………………………………………William Carlos Williams (Dial, 1923)
[This poem has been posted twice on this site, here and here. The response has been desultory, though the themes have been crying out for discussion.]
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