DIGITAL: Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion
DIGITAL: Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion
by Pasha Malla & Jeff Parker
The digital version of this book is a .zip folder which includes the following file types:
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.epub for other e-readers
.pdf
The content of postgame interviews and sports chatter is so often meaningless, if not insufferable. And yet there are athletes like Metta World Peace who transcend lame clichés and rote patter, who use language in surprising ways, who can be funny and shocking and insightful and alarmingly sincere—pure poetry. Muhammad Ali offered dazzling displays of lexical wizardry, and Allen Iverson’s infamous “practice” rant shifted the postgame press conference from the banal to the absurd.
Featuring an introduction by award-winning sports writer Bethlehem Shoals, Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion is a celebration of these rare and exceptional moments. Various poetic forms and line-breaks highlight—or, in the words of Deion Sanders, “deem to set a candor on”—the sophisticated, sublime, and surprising performances of language made by professional athletes.
Read an excerpt
Praise for ERRATIC FIRE, ERRATIC PASSION
“There are many who refer to sports as poetry in motion, and there are some who argue that all conversation is a living form of poetry. These are both imperfect metaphors. But here is a book that takes the literal language of sport and converts it into the actual structure of poetry, and—sometimes, almost by accident—the result is actual perfection.”
“Athletes speak in their own language. In the hands of writers Jeff Parker and Pasha Malla, those words become poetry. See for yourself.”
“Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion swept me off my feet. I love poetry and sports, and what sports fan doesn’t want to relive Allen Iverson’s ‘Practice’ rant? What poetry fan doesn’t like a skillful rondeau? But you don’t have to share my enthusiasm for verse and the athlete’s vocation to absolutely adore this book. Parker’s and Malla’s poems smack you in the face, challenging our fascination with fame while showcasing the lyricism of our language as it makes, and loses, meaning. Thoughtful and hilarious at every turn, this book scores off the charts. It’s perfection.”
About the Authors
Pasha Malla is the author of four books, which have been listed for or won the Commonwealth Prize, the Dublin-IMPAC Literary Award, the Giller Prize, and the Trillium Book Award. He's the winner of two National Magazine Awards for humor writing and an Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction. He lives in Toronto.
Jeff Parker’s books include Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal, the novel Ovenman, and the short story collection The Taste of Penny. He teaches in the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he lives.
Nathan McKee is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. McKee’s illustrations and paper cutouts utilize simple lines and flat color, and are inspired by comics, sports, music and other elements of popular culture. His works have been included in exhibitions in Portland, Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Boston and Switzerland. He runs the websites fakeyrowndeath.com and makemtakem.com and has studied at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
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