At the end of July, Norton sales rep Dan Christiaens hosted Poetry Night at the Ballpark with the staff of Seattle’s Open Books, and, for some reason, me. Dan gave us all copies of Norton’s Baseball Haiku, too. The crew declaimed some memorized verse between innings, but mostly we just watched the game and had a great time. The Northwest nine came out ahead of the world champion Astros after a tightly matched pitcher’s duel, and as a thank you to Dan I wrote a game summary in 5-7-5 stanzas:
El Oso Blanco
bombs one left of the foul pole
crowd sighs with relief
Big Maple on mound
raised branch falls and strong wind fans
forest of ashes
two outs? no problem
Segura‘s infield single
ends Cole’s no-hit bid
a Boomstick thunders
and scorches the third-base line
winning runs come home
horns blare as Díaz
enters, breaks the radar gun
fireworks light the sky
Pictured in my row are Billie Swift and Kym Littlefield; Dan’s wife Pam was also there along with Abi Pollokoff, Gabrielle Bates, and Rachel Hill.
By coincidence, this was also Filipino Heritage Night at Safeco Field, and Billie pointed out that the poem of the day at poets.org was by Filipino-American writer R.A. Villanueva: “Annus Mirabilis.”
James Crossley is a bookseller at Island Books as well as a fan of baseball and poetry. He contains multitudes and got his syllables in order and his seasonal and nature references in place, so if you want, you can call him Bashō.
Was that the best night of your summer or what?!
WHY WAS I NOT TOLD OF THIS POST?! Poetry and BASEBALL???? OR THIS PARTY??
Well done, people. Well done.