Athlete Poets

Conversation with
Stephen Dunn

The stereotypes about athletes and poets might make it seem like an odd combination, but poetry lives everywhere, and stereotypes need to be broken.  The summer issue of Rattle features 22 poets who break the mold—professional athletes from the NFL and NBA, tennis pros, soccer players, weightlifters, marathon runners, and more—capped off with a wide-ranging conversation with semi-pro basketball player and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn. As these poets explain in a particularly interesting contributor notes section, poetry and athletics fit together like a hand in a ball-glove.

The open section will make you laugh and cry as always, with a little more formal verse than usual, and an epic “Choose Your Own Adventure” poem by Caroline N. Simpson, which also adds a splash of color art for the first time in years.

 

	Athlete Poets
	James Adams	No Name
	Elison Alcovendaz	What Are You Doing Now?
	Chaun Ballard	Midnight Lazaruses
	Erinn Batykefer	Gimmie Shelter
	T.J. DiFrancesco	Magicker
	Stephen Dunn	Little Pretty Things
	Peg Duthie	Decorating a Cake While Listening to Tennis
	Michael Estabrook	Grand Illusion
	Daniel Gleason	Shadow Boxing Late at Night
	Tony Gloeggler	Some Long Ago Summer
	Alex Hoffman-Ellis	Modern Day Gladiator
	A.M. Juster	Heirloom
	Benjamín N. Kingsley	Fall
	Laura Kolbe	Calisthenics
	Michael Mark	Golf with Bob
	Tom Meschery	Two from Searching for the Soul
	Jack Ridl	Can We Know?
	Laszlo Slomovits	Strangers
	Brent Terry	What Happens in Church
	Martin Vest	Should I Spill My Beer
	Arlo Voorhees	The NFL on CTE
	Guinotte Wise	The Why of Bull Riding
	Poetry
	Timothy DeJong	Dog at the Farm
	Kim Dower	The Delivery Man
	Joseph Fasano	Hymn
	Alan C. Fox	Help
	Conrad Geller	Elemental Intelligence
	Athena Kildegaard	Allurement
	David Mason	A Cabbie in America
	John Lazear Okrent	After Seeing a Picture in the New York Times …
	Caroline N. Simpson	Choose Your Own Adventure …
	Anne Starling	Compassionate Friends
	Katherine Barrett Swett	Marginalia
	Stephen Taylor	Prenuptial Agreement
	William Trowbridge	Oldguy: Superhero vs. The Riddler
	Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III)	Winter’s Blues
	Conversation
	Stephen Dunn
	Cover Art
	William C. Crawford (web)