The Wimbledon Poet

 The All England Club

Our British cousins just know how to do things with a bit more panache then their younger American cousins. Imagine, a poet in residence at a major sporting event, I think it is marvelous. But then tennis has always (well almost always) been a sport of manners and class. I would like to take a moment and introduce you to my new "stranger-friend" that I met online via blog and Twitter. Marvelous age we live in, really it is.

This is Matt Harvey, the first appointed poet in residence at the Championships Wimbledon 2010. You can read his daily poems at Wimblewords on the Wimbledon website The Campionships Wimbledon

and this is his poem...

more than a lawn 

By Matt Harvey, The Championships Poet 2010 

 

it's a lawn - just a lawn

but it's more than a lawn

it's a dance floor, a war zone, a platform, a stage

showcase, coliseum, a ring, a fight cage

big top, debating hall, combat arena

goldfish bowl, cauldron, a cliché convener

petri dish, pressure cooker, drama provider

physics laboratory, small hadron collider

it's all these things - sort of - but what is it not?

it isn't a park, or a nice picnic spot

it's not an allotment - there's no strawberry patch

but the bounce will be true

and the bounces will match

those on all the courts made by the Wimbledon crew

it's still just a lawn but one made by the best

a regular lawn but a lawn that is blessed

just a lawn, made of grass, but a lawn that's possessed

of a singular, unparalleled beauty

and Eddie Seaward expects

every blade of grass to do its duty 

(Eddie Seaward, is the Head Groundsman at Wimbledon.)