The sports poems have taken a new direction. Yesterday I was checking out sports programming on-line at WBUR and came across the "Only a Game" website which was running a story on the childhood game four square which is played locally at the Cambridge Y every other weekend by a group of adults! Which led me to do some general research into the game and many such leagues apparently exist. hard to say whether the game is played as aggressively in adulthood as in childhood. The game uses the same ball as dodgeball which also raises some interesting thoughts. There has been a controversy surrounding the banning of dodge ball which started in Connecticut a few years ago, spearheaded by a physical education teacher who coaxed one of his students into a game, an overweight, girl with glasses, who had her nose broken by another player within seconds of entering the game. He aimed the ball for her head. Kids have been reported to say "I enjoy hitting other people with the ball." There's a great report in an old issue of the L.A. Times covering the topic.

So now I am working on a visual four square poem laid out like a grid and playing around with early childhood games learned thru phys ed - marco polo, red rover, dodgeball, sharks and minnows - thinking that the structure of the sports manuscript, working title "Face Off Spots in Neutral Zones" will start with early childhood/innocence, move into adolescence/sexuality, and end with poems of adulthood/experience.