Robert Creeley in the outfield.

By Fernando Perez
Poetry Media Service

I write from Caracas, the murder capital of the world, where I’ve been employed by the Leones to score runs and prevent balls from falling in the outfield. At the ankles of the Ávila Mountain amongst a patch of dusky high-rises, the downtown grounds of el Estadio Universitario packed beyond capacity are ripe for a full-bodied poem. A mere pitching change is an occasion para rumbiar, and the pursed-lipped riot squad is always on the move with their spanking machetes swinging from their hips. The game isn’t paced necessarily by innings or score. It’s marked by the pulsating bass drums of the samba band that trails bright, scantily clad, headdressed goddesses strutting about the mezzanine. The young fireworks crew stands mere feet from flares that don’t always set out vertically, sometimes landing in the outfield still aflame. “The wave” includes heaving drinks into the sky.

In earning my stripes as a professional baseball player, I’ve been through many cities and have stared out of hotel windows all over the Americas. Ballplayers are mercenaries, taking assignments indiscriminately. Throughout the minor leagues you’ll find yourself slouched on a bus, watching small towns roll by matter-of-factly like stock market tickers, on your back in a new nondescript room, or “shopping for images” (Allen Ginsberg) in a Wal-Mart, hunched over a cart in no rush.

Like poetry, baseball is a kind of counterculture. The (optional) isolation from the outside world (which I often opt for); the idleness about which—and out of which—so many poems are written or sung: I see this state of mind as a blessing. Sometimes, in fact, when I haven’t turned on a television or touched a newspaper for months, freed from the corporate bombast, poetry is the only dialect I recognize.

Long ago Robert Creeley confirmed my suspicion that words strung even sparingly together can be as aurally powerful as anything else we have. He has been my most important poet, because I can take him anywhere, like oranges—even reduced to nothing in both physical and mental exhaustion, nauseous and half asleep busing from a red-eye.

One of my first managers always preached separation from the game for the sake of our own health, and for the sake of our performance. The game can be maddening, and we ought to corner ourselves in this trade only so far. I’m in love with baseball, but eventually my prime will end, and she’ll slowly break my heart. Baseball has remained remarkably impervious to modernity, but is, like any modern industry, highly alienating. I turn to poetry because it is less susceptible to circumstance. I’m not especially touched when a poet deals with a ball game; I’m not especially interested in having one world endear itself to the other. Right now I need them apart; right now I’m after displacement, contrast. The thick wilderness of, say, late Ashbery can wrangle with the narrowness of competition.

Fernando Perez is an outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays. He received a degree in American studies and completed the creative writing program at Columbia University in New York City, where he lives in the off-season. This essay originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Poetry magazine, and is available at www.poetryfoundation.org. Distributed by the Poetry Foundation.

© 2009 by Fernando Perez. All rights reserved

Just a few thoughts I want to share about last weekend’s South Dakota Festival of Books in Deadwood:

Going in, it was clear that the roster of poets this year was quite good. Wayne Miller of Kansas City impressed me as a poet who I’ll be reading more of. I picked up his book, “The Book of Props,” after his morning reading in the Deadwood Public Library.

After Miller opened the day’s poetry, the “Dakota Poetry” presentation by S.D. poet laureate David Allan Evans, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn of Rapid City and Linda Hasselstrom of Hermosa provided a personal moment for me. Evans taught a poetry class I was in at South Dakota State University. Hasselstrom visited my first high school creative writing class in 1990. And the teacher of that class, Bill Schulz, was also at the presentation Saturday. Three of my earliest, and strongest, poetic influences were sitting in the same room. I offered my gratitude all around.

Melissa Kwasny of Montana writes a kind of poetry that I find difficult. I had hoped her reading would help me break through my own density, but alas, it was not to be.

Ken Waldman, Alaska’s fiddling poet, was unexpectedly interesting. I’ll admit that I was wary. I had some assumption that Waldman and his musical gimmick would be a half-notch up from the usual cowboy poetry schtick. But he put on a Beat-like performance that justified his having the largest audience of the day. He also generously offered me advice on where to submit my manuscript for publication.

Miller and Simon Van Booy presented “Favorite Verses,” in which the pair took turns reading from their favorite works. Van Booy, a Briton, was riveting in his own readings and his commentary on Miller’s selections as well.

Jim Reese of Mount Marty College in Yankton read with Evans later in the afternoon. I interviewed Reese, the editor of the literary journal Paddlefish, for this blog earlier this year, but I had not met him in person. His reading previewed poems from a new collection he has coming out soon. Evans also has a new collection in the works.

The day ended with Quincy Troupe. He read only three or four poems and then delved into his biography of jazz king Miles Davis, which is being made into a motion picture. He spent the bulk of his presentation talking with the audience about his long friendship with Davis. He didn’t do much poetry, but his stories about Davis were fascinating nonetheless.

So the big literary event in my state is less than two weeks away, and it looks to be a good one this year. The South Dakota Festival of Books will be Friday through Sunday, Oct. 2-4, in the historic gambling-mining-HBO town of Deadwood.

I’m planning to be up on Saturday, when the bulk of the public (no ticket needed) sessions are scheduled. I’ll definitely be at the Dakota Poetry session featuring S.D. poet laureate David Allan Evans, Elizabeth-Cook Lynn and Linda Hasselstrom (an early inspiration). You’ll also see me listening to Montana poet Melissa Kwasny at her session. I’ve been reading her latest, “Reading Novalis in Montana,” but it hasn’t caught me for the most part. I’m hoping that hearing her read aloud does the trick.

Mount Marty College’s Jim Reese will be reading with Evans at 4 p.m. That’s a late change to the schedule that was necessary because Reese will be discussing his work teaching writing in the prison system at 3 p.m. He had been also scheduled in a concurrent session. And last of all, I’ll be taking in what Quincy Troupe has to offer in slelected readings.

And that’s just the Poetry track. The festival has sessions all day for Fiction, Nonfiction, Writer’s Support, Children’s/Youth, History/Tribal Writers and other Special Events. Writer’s Suppport has some promise, as do some of the nonfiction presentations.

My one other recommendation would be to catch Spearfish author Kent Meyers at one of the three sessions he’ll be in. He has a new novel, “Twisted Tree,” out and seems to be poised for bigger things.

The first South Dakota book festival was in Deadwood (2002? 2003? Anyone?) and is where I first encountered the poet Craig Arnold, who died last spring in a fall from a volcano in Japan. He was quite inspirational that day.

A couple of South Dakota poetry items have been sitting on the back burner while I’ve been tending to my real life.

First, state poet laureate David Allan Evans, will give a lecture and reading on Friday, July 10, at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City. His appearance will be at the opening of the “Images of Place” exhibit, which features Evans’ poems and the paintings of Lead artist Gary Steinley. Evans’ presentation begins at 7 p.m. The Rapid City Journal article about the readings is here.

Also worth reading is an article about Francie Davis, the new editor at Pasque Petals. It’s right here.

I love this: Poetry unlocks woman’s memory.