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All Souls Day 2010
Post Halloween Offering: Literary Treats and Poetic Tricks
Happy November, friends. Tis the season for overlapping: baseball to basketball, ghouls and goblins to saints and lost souls, orange autumn to darkening winter. As we beat the drum for our 15th anniversary issue, making our way from Limbo to a warming press, we offer a few teasers here that will also appear in the print edition. I’ve said this before, but I really mean it now. This is our best collective yet. Maybe something for the Halloween teenager who shows up dressed like Arthur Miller. A great Thanksgiving Day leave-behind for in laws. And certainly a dandy stocking stuffer for any of you and yours who are reading-inclined.
For the taste testers, a tennis essay from B. J. Hollars follows, along with a pair of poems — hockey rumination from John Mavin and some 5K advice from David Ebenbach (don’t forget to jump to the link). I sincerely hope these honest, leisurely reflections help to lighten your workaday load. If so, consider buying a back issue, the forthcoming anniversary issue, or go whole hog with a subscription. It’s an easy PayPal click away. |
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SL Essay
The Last Loss
by B. J. Hollars
LOVE-LOVE
We weren't good and we weren't great, but somewhere in between, trapped in our sub-par limbo, trying to hit our way out. Still, we wore our average-ness like a merit badge, proud of our ability to peek just beyond the upper half of the local tennis rankings. We closed each season as sectional runner-ups, our last loss falling to Homestead during the first weekend of October. Always a brisk morning, sweatshirt weather, and for four years we peeled oranges and drank Gatorade as if Vitamin C and electrolytes might save us. They didn't — not ever. We preferred our humiliation in small doses, so when we lost we lost quickly — no sense dragging out the inevitable. Except I always found some sense in dragging out the inevitable, moonballing my opponent to madness, hoping his spirit (or legs) might break. We had a saying that last season: Even after you've already predicted your defeat, there's no predicting rolled ankles. Read more... |
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SL Poetry
Zebra
by John Mavin
He's not blind,
he's not deaf.
His proctologist didn't call
and neither did his village.
He's not pregnant,
his head isn't stuffed anywhere,
and no,
he's not being paid by the other team.
He's just a boy,
two years older than your son,
who wears a black and white striped shirt
and loves this game so much
he's willing to put up with you.
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John Mavin holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia. His work has been published internationally, his plays have been produced locally, and he teaches creative writing at Simon Fraser University. To learn more, check out his website, www.johnmavin.com.
How to Run Your First 5K
by David Ebenbach
I. Choosing a Race
You find one through a website, a race loosely attached
to a celebration of German culture in Indiana’s Village
of Spires. You don’t know anything about any of it, and
that feels about right. On the phone the woman says
she can’t take credit cards but bets there will still be
t-shirts on the day of the race. You give her your name
and she asks, You’re German? Do you like beer?
Read more... |
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SL Elsewhere: Alums on the Bookshelf
Mark Wukas, a friend, mentor, and contributor to Sport Literate, is being anthologized. His essay, “Running With Ghosts,” which we published in one of our first few issues, is forthcoming in the collective, Runners on Running. For details on its November arrival, check out the publisher's website.
Another SL writer, Jenny Shank, will officially become a novelist next spring. The Ringer will be published by The Permanent Press in March 2011. To learn more, check out her website at www.jennyshank.com. |
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