Poetry and sport: Well versed in a game of inches and meters

A few years ago, someone suggested to me that sportswriters would be better advised to read poetry, specifically lyric poetry, rather than some of those vast, mannered chunks of American sportswriting that get cheered from the rafters (with relief, maybe, when the reader gets to the end).

The point was sharp then and remains astute now. The best lyric poetry is compressed, sharp, descriptive, provocative, vivid. All of those are elements you’d associate with the best sportswriting, surely?

I was reminded of that conversation by a terrific book I fielded over the Christmas, Everything To Play For — 99 Poems About Sport, edited by John McAuliffe and published by Poetry Ireland.