Stickball on 88th Street

by Barnstone, Willis

• ISBN13: 9781597094771
• ISBN10: 1597094773
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-01
• Publisher: Red Hen Pr

Summary

Comic, tragic, colorful, and adventurous, Stickball on 88th Streetis a sequence of thirty-four narrative poems that follows its speaker from boyhood to college. It's a memory book, bound with vignettes of school, family life, and the streets of New York City, as well as Maine and Mexico, culminating with a swan dive in Colorado. It reads like a novel or memoir, with characters, setting, and plot. Stickballemploys an original form, neither free verse nor traditionally formal, but rather lexical. Instead of meter and syllable counts, the book uses individual words as its units of measure. Each quatrain has twenty words: six each in the first two lines, four each in the last two lines. This form imposes no ponderous regularity, allowing for a swift narrative flow. It was written over the course of thirteen days in August, 1977, and has remained unchanged since then.

Excerpts

Stickball on 88th Street

 

 

I'm not much good at stickball

and the kids are tough. Somehow

      it's my turn. In

      comes the rubber ball

slowly in a dream like a

planet that won't spin. It comes

      close, a blazing milky

      rubber pea. I swing.

Bop! My childhood skids along windows,

dropping fair behind a manhole. I

      race scared, ripping out

      to second, miles away.

 I must tag the lamppost first,

get by the toughs, not piss       

      in my pants or

      bite my tongue. Why

didn't I dump the marbles when

I got up to bat? They

      rattle in my knicker

      pockets. Second is far

as Maiden Lane. If I slip

I'm out! No one's my friend

      on this block. If

      I make it, I'll

pass semaphore and learn to kip

on the highbar. The boys are

      screaming for me to

      run. For me! I

round second. Two kids are yelling

up the street, after the ball,

      as it bounces toward

      wild yellow taxis thumping

down West End. I fly home

through the mobs of black angels.

      Tonight I'll even snatch

      supper from the dog.

The ball floats home. I’m safe,

standing on the side with guys

      shoving me. I’ll never

      get to bat again.