Reading through Tears In The Fence the other day, I found that SJ Litherland's poem was 'about' England batsman Ian Bell (well, he's just been dropped, but I'm sure he'll be back).
Now I know that some readers are going to be immediately turned off by the thought of cricket poems, and given that the game is one of those Marmite-style things that you either love or hate, that's fair enough. But me, I've got a soft spot for them, especially when they're good, as this one is.
Litherland also wrote a whole book of poetry, The Homage, concerned with ex-England captain Nasser Hussain, and it's great. Again, it probably helps if you're a fan of Nasser (I am - I liked him as a player and captain, and like him even more as a hopelessly partisan commentator), but it's the quality of the poetry that really makes it worth a look.
I reckon I've only written four cricket poems myself, the best, I think, being one about Yorkshire left-arm spinners Wilfrid Rhodes and Hedley Verity, but I daresay there'll be more at some stage.
3 comments:
You might like to read about another cricket-loving poet ...
Interesting too, to hear Conor O'Callaghan described as 'Ireland's leading poet-cricketer' in the latest Poetry mag podcast. I'd forgotten he had that particular claim to fame :-)
http://tinyurl.com/858fjb
and
http://tinyurl.com/cugffq
for cricket and poetry links ...
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