[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

My nephew’s twelve years old. He just started little league practice for the spring season. That sounds crazy to me because it’s not baseball weather. It’s not even Valentine’s Day. Now, kids’ sports require commitment that was never asked of me when I was young. Whether or not youth athletics are too structured or too demanding is an interesting question, but not one I’m planning on addressing right now.

I bring up my nephew because he’s frogspawn, blossoms, buzzing bees, and W-2s in the mail: a sign of coming spring. He’s at practice, the herald signaling greater things and right on cue, MLB pitchers and catchers started reporting. The Cubs were the first to get going on the 9^th. By the 13^th, every battery in the league is scheduled for post-workout ice baths; by the 18^th, full squads.

POETS Day is never purposeless, but soon – maybe not soon, but in the foreseeable future – you’ll Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday, and there’s a Friday afternoon game on. Thinnest line on the horizon. Barely in sight. It’s beginning though, and a little league shall lead them.

Take off, enjoy the anticipation and the afternoon. First some verse.

***

In 1844, Leigh Hunt published a collection of essays called Imagination and Fancy. I couldn’t find a copy of it online. It seems like something Project Gutenberg would have, but no. us.archive.org has Essays of Leigh Hunt: Selected and Edited by Reginald Brimley Johnson. It doesn’t contain the whole 1844 collection, but it has the essay “An Answer to the Question, What is Poetry?” I was after. That’s the one where, I’ve read, he famously lays out his philosophy of poetry. Reginald Brimley Johnson was kind enough to select and edit that one.