Poetry in Football - Fictionally and Real Life

After reading From Sweetgrass Bridge I wrote to Anthony Bidulka about the book and he replied with his customary candour. In what might be a surprise to readers our discussion took us to poetry by football players in fiction and real life.

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Anthony,

Thank you for the ARC. I was hoping a copy would make it my way.

I liked From Sweetgrass Bridge better than Livingsky. The murder is directly integrated into the plot. Roger/Stella forming a team with Merry is brilliant. They are perfect.

As I indicated in my review posted tonight, your examination of the emotional psyches of the characters was powerfully done. 

My excitement at being a character inspired another post which will be up in a couple of days.

This letter and your reply, if you are able to respond, will form my third post.

In my four and a half decades as a sports reporter I cannot recall hearing of a CFL player disappearing during the football season.

If anything is understated in the book, it is the search that would have been underway if the starting Rider quarterback had actually gone missing. In real life, there would have been a million Saskatchewanians out doing a grid search of the province.

Any major event in the life of a Roughrider involves the province. The whole province mourned last year when George Reed, one of the two most revered and famed Riders, died last year at 83.

My only regret was that I wish more of the story would have involved the Roughriders. Dustin’s life in the book had limited connection with the team. 

As I read the book I thought of your goal to write of the under-represented in society. I recognize the importance of Dustin’s heritage being indigenous but for this letter I want to focus on him as a football player.

Professional football players are not under-represented as a group in our society. They are probably over-represented. Yet the public gets little chance to read and learn of their lives as men away from the field. 

I was impressed that Dustin wrote a moving poem. Dustin, as with many real life professional football players, does not fit the stereotype of rough tough insensitive men.

I want to repeat his poem “From Sweetgrass Bridge”:

      I see beginning

      I see end

      From Sweetgrass Bridge I see forever

     Swift flow, eddies

Cool

Damp air moss lichen river stone

Deepening, darkening

Unexpected

From Sweetgrass Bridge

I see never

I see end

Should readers think it improbable that football players write poetry I have a book of poems, Pro Football From the Inside, written by Dick Bass an American football college player whose career was ended by polio and who later became a professional coach and football executive. In the 1990’s he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sacramento Gold Miners who played in the CFL for a couple of seasons. His book, one of two books of poetry he wrote, is evocative of life on the line in games and the emotions of life away from the field.

One of my favourite poems in Pro Football From the Inside is “Come Meet Mike”:

He has a style

all his own

one foot way up

body rocking back and forth

in a never ending rhythm

to an orchestration that only he can hear.

His moves are mongoose like

a strobe light blur

streaking in and out

before your eyes

a most difficult style of play 

that very few 

can even begin

to try to imitate.

His well taped hands

that slap

and push and grab

punishing opponents across the line

possess a truly sensitive touch

when unencumbered

and searching 

for certain special

notes and sounds

that are a part

of the music

he so passionately adores.

On the field

you see a person

who is devastatingly violent

each and every play

a totally destructive force

for the minutes of the game.

But off the field

the creative man emerges

so soft inside himself

this is his other side

a most beautiful

and remarkable side indeed

a side

I hope someday

that you may also see.

Thank you for writing about a real professional football player.

Bill

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Hi Bill,

As always, let me begin by saying thank you for what you do (off the field, so to speak, from being a lawyer), not only in spending time and utilizing expertise in reviewing my books but mysteries in general, specifically those written by Canadian writers. As you and your readers no doubt know, reviews--professional and otherwise--are the lifeblood of a book's first months.

But off the field

the creative man emerges

so soft inside himself

How beautiful, these words. I do not profess to be a connoisseur of poetry, nor football (don't strike me down!), but I recognize beauty and passion and people's love for something that others may not understand. These complexities and nuances are what make people so fascinating and, for me, a joy to write about.

I agree, the Roughriders and Dustin's life as a footballer were not a focus in the book. As you wisely state "Professional football players are not under-represented as a group in our society. They are probably over-represented. Yet the public gets little chance to read and learn of their lives as men away from the field." 

The choices I made about how to write about the Roughriders and Dustin are--as are most of my writing choices--rooted in the fundamentals of why I write: I write to tell stories of under-represented people and places in a way that is accessible and hopefully entertaining. I know you know this about me, but it bears repeating in this context. With the Merry Bell books in general, that translates into writing about Saskatchewan, writing about a transgender character, writing about an Indigenous character, writing about a crossdresser, writing about strong female lead characters and writing about underdogs. I'm short of breath just typing this! :) Then, with each individual book in the trilogy, I layer on a mystery and new characters which, I hope, can round out or add to my cast of under-represented characters in meaningful and fulfilling ways. And as a side dish, I search for ways to stretch and educate myself as a writer (in this case, poetry and football).

I'd come to feel that some day in the long distant future, perhaps on another planet, when some poor unsuspecting alien is sitting in a class covering the Bidulka ouevre, the professor (I picture one with tentacles) might question his students why this writer, who spent so much time writing about Saskatchewan, never once mentioned the Saskatchewan Roughriders. You yourself say "... the life of a Roughrider involves the province."  As soon as I hit upon the idea of From Sweetgrass Bridge I was in love with it and knew it was my time to write about the Roughies (and not disappoint future alien fans). However, in doing so, I needed to come up with a balance that achieved a balance between (a) my WHY as a writer (b) servicing the Merry Bell series, and (c) writing a book planted in the mystery genre.

I may have said this to you before: I sometimes struggle in finding the sweet spot when balancing writing mystery, writing about character development, and writing to serve my WHY. To do so, choices must be made. In From Sweetgrass Bridge I wrote about the Saskatchewan Roughriders as another vehicle to write about Saskatchewan. I wrote about Dustin Thomson in a way that, at least I, have not seen a local footballer written about before. Dustin is a homegrown Indigenous man who becomes the Riders primary quarterback (first of his kind), but beyond that, I focus on the parts of him that don't show up on the football field, a poster, or in a commentator's interview. We all have many sides, yet football players are often portrayed in a way that relies solely on their behaviour on the field or misbehaviour after hours. That is what peaked my interest and fed into the story I wanted to tell.

There was, I admit, much more to say, rich story lines to develop in the Roughrider realm. Those, I'm afraid, ended up in a bottom drawer or were left unwritten in favour of choices made for serving the rest of the story and the lives of Merry, Gerald, Brenda, Roger/Stella, Veronica Greyeyes, Alvin Smallinsky and the newest cast member, Marco the Lagotto Romangnolo.

Anthony