Baseball, and Beyond! A poetry reading by Louise Grieco, Mikhail Horowitz, and Tim Wiles

Baseball, and Beyond!
A poetry reading by Louise Grieco, Mikhail Horowitz, and Tim Wiles

Once upon a time, there were three poets who were interested in baseball and the cosmos.  One of them, who was a librarian at the Baseball Hall of Fame a long time ago, in a town not so far away, edited an anthology of baseball poems, selecting one poem each from the other two—poems that reached beyond the game toward the galaxy it’s played in. The editor thought the three of them should meet, and told them so, and less than a lightyear later they did, and eventually collaborated. Now they perform for the first time as a trio, reading poems about deep space, the exit velocity of home runs leaving the stratosphere, neutron all-stars, and who knows what else. Fine metaphors, varied rhythms, good humor, and astute observations are guaranteed. Caution, minds may be blown!

Mikhail Horowitz is the author of Big League Poets (City Lights, 1978). He was a contributor to the fifth edition of Total Baseball, a contributing editor to Elysian Fields Quarterly, and his spoken word pieces have been included in three of the Diamond Cuts CD series of baseball-related songs and monologues. His ode to a black hole was published in the Science section of the New York Times in 2004, to favorable reviews in the Perseus Cluster Post and the Parallel Universe News.

Louise Grieco’s work has been published in various small magazines and an anthology, Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems (Southern Illinois University Press, 2002). Her most recent project was a chapbook, High Fives: Fifty Cinquains (Alte Books, 2022)—a collaboration with her friend and fellow poet Mikhail Horowitz. She is an avid gardener, preferring native plants and organic practices. She is also a longtime practitioner of tai chi—which may explain her fascination with the elegance of baseball.

Tim Wiles is the director of the Guilderland Public Library, the co-editor of Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball poems (SIU Press 2002), and writes poetry as a hobby. He is also the co-author of Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game,   (Hal Leonard, 2008)