creative forces

Blog # 81…May, 2018

Sports are always in the news one way or another. As well as providing inspiration and diversion for many of us and career opportunities for a few, sports are now being credited with promoting world peace.  Ping pong diplomacy thawed relations between the US and China in the 70’s. Rapprochement on the Korean peninsula began in PyeongChang earlier this year with the athletes from the North and the South marching together in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics under a united flag.

I’d never thought much about sports' connection to art until I read Priscila Uppal’s wonderful collection of poems Winter  Sport published in 2010 after she’d been poet –in-residence at the BC winter Olympics...featured in Blog # 7…March 2011. The two worlds seem to be radically different but both involve passion, precision and practice with a focus on reaching that personal best.

There’s a certain aesthetic in the form of a swimmer going through the water or the grace of a high jumper clearing the pole. The Globe and Mail’s new format includes on Saturday a double page of the week’s top sports photos, some of which are breathtaking.

And I've happened to read a couple of  novels recently that have sport as their focus and it got me thinking that art and sport really do inhabit the same realm in different ways. Sergio de la Pava’s Lost Empress gives us a backstage glimpse at big league teams and their obscene wealth, exploring the world they inhabit and the lives and systems they impact.  I’m not much of a fan of anything but baseball, but am always interested in a good story and in entering terra incognita.

In 2015, Lawrence Hill wrote The Illegal, about a refugee who literally runs from persecution in his native country. He goes on to become a successful but underground marathon winner in the country where he lands.  His internal life is a moving tale of someone who can never run fast enough or far enough to escape his past, another unknown world and a good story.

From Priscila's poem about the courage of Joannie Rochette who skated to a bronze medal just days after her mother died, all along the line to the scenes of the crass manipulations of professional team owners in Lost Empresse, sports run the gamut.  Don't get me started on performance enhancing substances!

See you in June, let's think about how to understand what's going on with young men these days.