Opening Day

Poems Ancient and Modern is a new Substack site run by, among others, South Dakota’s leading man of letters, Jody Bottum. I subscribe to it, even though I am not much of a poetry lover, and have found it entertaining and illuminating. Poems Ancient and Modern features a new poem, with commentary, every day. In honor of Opening Day, yesterday’s poem was “Casey at the Bat,” which, as Jody points out, is perhaps America’s best-known poem, its only real rival being “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

Here, Jody relates the history of “Casey at the Bat,” which was written by Ernest L. Thayer, a Harvard grad who is not known for much else. In reading the poem, I realized that while its closing lines are unforgettable, I hadn’t actually read the whole thing in many years. This is how it begins:

The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that —
We’d put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

The poem’s fame is justified. And how many days on the calendar are worth celebrating as much as Opening Day? Three or four, maybe, in my opinion, if you count my wife’s birthday.

For something completely different, today’s poem, “And Ran Away Naked,” is a sonnet taken from the Gospel of Mark. It is written by Maryann Corbett, who, we are told, worked for 35 years in the Office of the Revisor of Statutes of the Minnesota State Legislature. Which I suppose reflects how much money there is in poetry. But the sonnet is good, and even for philistines like me, a daily dose of poetry is not a bad idea. I’d encourage you to check out Poems Ancient and Modern.