The Power of Poetry

With Casey at the Bat

Last week I posted a video presentation of the poem, “Casey at the Bat,” by Ernest Thayer. Written in 1888, the classic American poem is a light-hearted celebration of America’s favorite pastime. Thinking about that poem reminded me of a pivotal time in my own life back in the summer of 1963.

As I third-grader, the upcoming summer posed new opportunities.  The one my father was pushing me toward was joining a Little League baseball team. During that spring, all of my classmates were getting excited about baseball, the way most kids do. It was during that time that my mother found the poem, “Casey at the Bat,” that had been reprinted in The Saturday Review. I read the poem and was thrilled by the words and the drama that unfolded. I took that page from the magazine and folded it neatly to carry in my back pocket. For the next several days, I would read it whenever I got the chance.

Somehow I got the notion that I could memorize “Casey at the Bat.” I continued to work at it until I was able to recite the entire piece “by heart.” Looking at the poem now, I am surprised that a third-grader took on such a challenge.

A Troublesome Time

Little League, however, was a disastrous failure. My un-athletic and uncoordinated body made me afraid to even try out for a team. For the first time, I felt like a disappointment to my father and an outcast from my peers.  That failed summer cast a blight upon my ability to enjoy even attending a game for years to come.

It took me far too long to recover from that baseball failure, but as an adult, I can look back in genuine amazement at that eight-year-old boy who imagined that he could recite a thirteen stanza poem from memory. If it had been a school assignment, he might have balked, but something about that poem engaged him. Something in him decided to rise up and do the work needed to accomplish the task.

I did not know it at the time, but that summer marked a crossroads in my life. It was like an ax, splitting away what was not in my nature and revealing what was true to my nature. It was impossible for me to recognize then or in the intervening years that followed, but it was the play of poetry that became the redeeming moment of that troublesome childhood event. 

Poetic Call

I was in the second grade when I wrote my first poem, fascinated that I could find words that rhyme to tell a story. It was poetry that would continue to call at odd moments of my passage through junior high and high school. It was poetry that would say to me, “Pick up your pen and write. You can do this!” For me, it was like the bashful young Caedmon's guide who came to him in a dream and encouraged him to sing of “the beginning of created things.”

Even if I had managed all those years ago to make the team, I doubt that at my age today I would have any notions of getting back on the baseball diamond to toss a few for the love of the game. But I can still catch a word and send it flying in a sonnet. I can field a phrase and toss it into a haiku, or send a cutter of simile along the line of a free verse stanza. Playing with words is a skill that one can continue to hone throughout a lifetime.

Most redeeming of all, I can look back in admiration at that eight-year-old boy who memorized “Casey at the Bat,” and say, “Great job, son! Who else could do that like you at your age?”

For me, poetry holds a two-fold power: the divining power of revealing my nature, and the healing power of allowing me to go back in time to speak a word of encouragement to the lad I once was.

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