Baseball Poems | Poetry Foundation (2024)

• • Casey at the Bat

  Ernest Lawrence Thayer
  

  And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
  And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

• • A Late Elegy for a Baseball Player

  Felix N. Stefanile
  

  cleats on his shoes,
  and a hometown shoulder,

• • A Ballad of Baseball Burdens

  Franklin Pierce Adams
  

  So pitch that every man can but admire
  And offer you the freedom of the town—
  This is the end of every fan’s desire.

• • First Girls in Little League Baseball

  J. Patrick Lewis
  

  Now what you hear, as flags unfurl,
  Is “Atta boy!” and “Atta girl!”

Poets playfully measure baseball’s symbolic weight.

• • We're Human Beings

  Jill McDonough
  

  Lugo
  wants you to know he's only
  human: We're human beings.
  That's why we're here.

• • Analysis of Baseball

  May Swenson
  

  Ball hates
  to take bat’s
  bait.

• • In Baseball

  Baron Wormser
  

  It’s the keenness of conflict that appeals

  See Also

  65 Heartfelt Motherly Baseball Quotes For Son From Mom45+ Baseball Mom Quotes for the MVP Behind the Scenes | LoveToKnow60 Baseball Mom Quotes on Being There for Your SonPoetry Prompt: Baseball Poems - Tweetspeak Poetry

• • Baseball

  Gail Mazur
  

  this is not a microcosm,
  not even a slice of life

• • Baseball and Classicism

  Tom Clark
  

  Every day I peruse the box scores for hours
  Sometimes I wonder why I do it

Baseball imagery seeps up from the subconscious.

• • A Poem about Baseballs

  Denis Johnson
  

  i know i will
  miss, because i always miss when it
  takes so long.

• • Dream in Which I Love a Third Baseman

  Lisa Olstein
  

  Off-field, outside the park, beyond
  the gates, something was burning.

• • Clothespins

  Stuart Dybek
  

  Bushes, a double,
  off the fence, triple,
  and over, home run.

• • Grand Slam

  Marjorie Maddox
  

  this is the moment replayed on winter days
  when frost covers the field,

  See Also

  30 Poems About Baseball - The Teaching Couple

Fathers, sons, and daughters on the field and in the stands.

• • Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt

  David Bottoms
  

  I could homer
  into the left-field lot of Carmichael Motors,
  and still you stressed the same technique,

• • Poem for My Father

  Quincy Troupe
  

  but you, there, father, through it all, a yardbird solo
  riffing on bat & ball glory, breaking down the fabricated myths

• • The Interpretation of Baseball

  Carole Oles
  

  And go back to the bleachers at Yankee Stadium
  where you took me at 7 though I was not the son

• • Bad People

  Mark Halliday
  

  Kenny’s bottle smashed on home plate and Jack heard in the sound
  the absurdity of all his desiring since seventh grade,

Watching the game becomes a sport unto itself.

• • The crowd at the ball game

  William Carlos Williams
  

  So in detail they, the crowd,
  are beautiful

• • 7th Game : 1960 Series

  Paul Blackburn
  

  men’s eyes are blank
  their thoughts are all in Pittsburgh

• • Old Men Watching Baseball

  Oliver Evans
  

  Uneasy knowledge in them of a time
  When they, like these, could hit and fitly run

• • Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers

  John Updike
  

  The thought of death is peppermint to you
  when games begin with patriotic song
  and a democratic sun beats broadly down.

Poets and players on attentiveness, idleness, intimacy, and other parallels between poetry and baseball.

• • Baseball and Verse, from Tinker to Evers to Big Papi

  Levi Stahl
  

  Baseball’s very rhythms are those of poetry, acknowledging that if everything can change in a moment, then attention to those moments is an essential duty.

• • Para Rumbiar

  Fernando Perez
  

  I write from Caracas, the murder capital of the world, where I’ve been employed by the Leones to score runs and prevent balls from falling in the outfield.

• • Yo-Yo’s with Celery

  Ron Silliman interviewed by Jim Behrle (Jim Behrle & Ron Silliman)
  

  Poets historically can be pretty fun ballgame companions, and not only if they are on hallucinogens at a Red Sox/Yankees game like Ted Berrigan and Harris Schiff in the great Yo-Yo’s with Money.

• • Say Hey

  Ron Silliman
  

  What sets these poems apart from the bulk of baseball poetry, and from the ideology of individual accomplishment that is so much a part of the ethos of the sport, is that they’re about failure, and about intimacy, implying a deep, even necessary connection between the two.

• • Strangers in the Nest

  Anselm Berrigan interviewed by Bethlehem Shoals (Anselm Berrigan & Bethlehem Shoals)
  

  And in baseball, there’s so much space in the sport. The pitchers are doing a lot physically, but at the same time, they’re also standing there. You have to get interested in a slower sense of time passing.