David Ferry wins the NBA for poetry

[Tzara]

David Ferry has been awarded the National Book Award for Poetry for his book Bewilderment.

You can read some of his poems here.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Thank you Tzara. I hope I begin to like his poems more or see what in them merits such admiration. I am immediately put off by the capitalization of first words in each line and by the talkiness, phrasiness, expectedness of the first poem I read. I will read on and hope to discover some gold, somewhere.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

David Ferry has been awarded the National Book Award for Poetry for his book Bewilderment.

You can read some of his poems here.

Thanks for this, don't know his work, will now.

 

[Tzara]

Thank you Tzara. I hope I begin to like his poems more or see what in them merits such admiration. I am immediately put off by the capitalization of first words in each line and by the talkiness, phrasiness, expectedness of the first poem I read. I will read on and hope to discover some gold, somewhere.

Pat C. used to talk about how line caps were passé in poetry. I think he was probably right--they are distracting--but there are still quite a number of poets who use them. At least occasionally. Me included.

I rather liked the poems poets.org posted for Mr. Ferry. Yeah, very talky, almost like a story broken into lines, but I liked them.

And, no, you don't have to.

We can disagree, of course. Art is not a clear yes/no dichotomy.

 

[eagleyez]

Dave had a nice career in college and pro basketball. He played a heady game to make up for not being very quick on his feet. He was a great passer could drain 3's all night when he got going.

He went on to be a general managerin the NBA after he quit playing. I'm curious to read his poetry. Thanks for that one.

 

[eagleyez]

Woopsie,,,it aint the David Ferry of b-ball lore. lmao!!!

Well,I'm damn sure gonna read his stuff now,

 

[Angeline]

Woopsie,,,it aint the David Ferry of b-ball lore. lmao!!!

Well,I'm damn sure gonna read his stuff now,

It's ok honey. I thought it was the basketball nba at first, too. I think that comes from living with you!

 

[Desejo]

Well...Shaq tried his hand at something like poetry, right?

Like this gem:

You wanna fight? come fight me
I'll hit ya with the "wa-psh-psh-psh", see, see
I get dirty after dark, I'll treat you like Speilberg
You get your ass kicked in the park
You don't beleive me, the proof is in the pudding
Little boy in the hood, way before Cuba Gooding
I flip scrpits with the mad pa-style, freeze
Music please
I dribble rhymes like Basketball-ems
People call me E.T.,
(what's that Shaq man?)
Extra-Tallems
You better than Shaq-tack, fool, shut up liar
I lean on the statue of liberty when I get tired
Than I'll punch you in the stomach, I don't give a heck
(hey yo, why you bug a hooker like that?)
Yo, she breated on my neck
People walk around like yall, they got charred
But I'm big like Gorilla, 6-7, large
I kick rhymes like moduck-kwong you
I smoke-smoke the mic-mic
I Chech and Chong you
You don't like Shaq, frankly I don't give a damn
I know I got skills man, I know I got skills man

etc....

(Sorry, couldn't let you two have all the fun)

 

[eagleyez]

Ahhh Shaq (M.A.S. H. intertext.)

AKA The Big Shamrock, kid can drop some dope rhymes.

Good find.

 

[Tzara]

Woopsie,,,it aint the David Ferry of b-ball lore. lmao!!!

Well,I'm damn sure gonna read his stuff now,

That's prolly Danny Ferry, not David Ferry you're thinking of, Mr. e. Small forward (only in that other NBA is 6'10" considered "small") out of Duke. Don't know if he writes poetry or not. I'm guessing not:

my 35
up in the rafters
at Cameron

is nice but
I'd rather have
Laettner's ring(s)

though
I do have
an NBA

he dont​

Yeah. Probably not.

 

[eagleyez]

That's prolly Danny Ferry, not David Ferry you're thinking of, Mr. e. Small forward (only in that other NBA is 6'10" considered "small") out of Duke. Don't know if he writes poetry or not. I'm guessing not:

my 35
up in the rafters
at Cameron

is nice but
I'd rather have
Laettner's ring(s)

though
I do have
an NBA

he dont​

Yeah. Probably not.

Ahh Danny Ferrry. You are absolutely right. Sheesh, I took an axe to that one.

 

[bronzeage]

I always thought starting every line with a cap meant the writer was using MS-Word and never turned off auto correct. I don't think it lends anything to the reading.

Poets seem to agree on what is bad poetry, but there is never anything close to consensus on good poetry. I always think of Slartibartfast and his fjords. He designs fjords because he likes them. One day fjords become trendy and when he wins an award, it seems like a random thing. The fjords were no better or worse than before, but now, just noticed.

When I read the two pieces listed on the poets.org page, I thought Ferry and I could trade a few pages from our notebooks and probably no one would notice the difference, except for the caps, and maybe not even then.