Poems About Sports

Poetry is such a beautiful and emotional thing. Poems about sports has always fascinated me endlessly. Each of these poems are about several different sports and paint such fabulous pictures, regardless of whether or not you like the sports, you can’t help but respect the poems. So without further ado, here are some of my favorites about sports.

1. A Boy Juggling A Soccer Ball

This poem has such gorgeous and descriptive imagery while describing this seemingly simplistic event. It’s just a boy juggling a soccer ball, nothing outrageously interesting, but the language used turns it into something much more respectable and fantastic.

2. Slam, Dunk, and Hook

I love this poem because it makes a game of pickup basketball about so much more than just that. It uses great descriptive language that captures the fun that can come from just playing a simple game of basketball with your best friends, while you go through events in your personal events at the same time. It makes me want to get my friends together and just play the game and make memories.

3. Fast Break

“A hook shot kisses the rim and hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop,” I love this line because it really puts us in the shoes of somebody playing the game of basketball, in the present tense. We can feel all of the sights and sounds around the boy. Poetry is really a beautiful thing because it takes the most simple words and spins it into something more complicated and striking.

4. The Seventh Inning

This is a very long poem and reads more like a story. But it holds up as a poem due to the structure. I love how the story flows in such a unique way that makes it all the more memorable. It’s filled with words, I typically enjoy poems that are much shorter than this one is. But something about this poem still makes it work and stick out in my mind as being one of the better sports poems.

5. Casey At The Bat

Could I really talk about famous sports poem and leave this one off? It’s by far the most famous poem on the subject and it’s become a type of pop culture phenomenon. There’s an interesting cast of characters that fill the lines of this incredible poem. It also takes you through many different emotions. It’s odd how easily he’s able to get you emotionally invested and just caught up in the story. Basically, the question most fitting for me to ask is, who doesn’t love this one?

The Less Popular Sports

There are several sports that I really haven’t touched on yet this month. Unfortunately, there’s 30 days in April and there’s many many sports that I could talk about. However, I didn’t really want to talk about sports that I don’t know much about. So I just stuck to what I know the best which isn’t exactly a lot of different sports, just the main ones. I thought it’d be best to at least acknowledge these sports.

1. Hockey

I think hockey is a really awesome sport. It’s one that definitely doesn’t get enough credit. I mean, what other sport has so much physical action? Basketball, football, and baseball don’t have the type of physical contact and the fouls are hardly ever called. Like one hockey player once said, hockey gives you a free nose job. Hockey does have it’s pretty big stars but only a few of them, much less than the main sports I’ve already mentioned frequently this month. But here is my much too short talk about hockey. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk about it longer, I’d just sound uneducated on the sport (because I am) so I’ll stop here!

2. Soccer

One of the biggest sports in the world. It has a much bigger appreciation and following in other countries but I think it’s sort of catching on in the United States. The World Cup had such a high rating when it was on this summer. Pretty much everybody was suddenly a huge soccer fan but not so many people care during the actual season, but that’s typically how it goes. A lot of the most popular players aren’t actually American, but again, the World Cup gave some American soccer players attention like they’ve never seen before. Outside of the World Cup, there really isn’t much to say about the sport. I think the clubs and how they organize the teams can be a little more complicated than what I’d like for it to be. But it does deserve it’s special shout out since there are so many people who play the sport and also love watching it!

3. Swimming

I love swimming for fun but it was never something that I was good enough to do as a sport. I think it can be a really fun sport to watch, especially during the Olympics. There’s also several different popular athletes I can name off the top of my head: Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Mark Spitz, etc. Okay, let’s be honest, Michael Phelps is easily the most popular but Ryan Lochte is pretty up there too. Lochte is most famous for his attitude and vibrant outspoken personality. Phelps is most famous for his incredible swimming and his weed smoking. There are also many talented women swimmers who deserve some recognition as well. Both men and women swimming teams were absolutely dominant for the United States in the Olympics back in 2014. It was a really fun time to watch and I can’t wait for 2018 for the next one.