Game ball for the 2009 Poetry Scores Art Invitational

This is the game ball for the 2009 Poetry Scores Art Invitational, signed by most of the artists who contributed to our show, which was a smashing success and a rousing good time.

I try to remember to get people to sign game balls when they work on a group project together. I can't exactly explain why, except that I have a mystical view of the game of baseball, and imagine that the game can be used as a metaphor to describe almost anything good.

For example, if I were to field an imaginary baseball team from a selection of artists in this year's Invitational, it might look like this on the lineup card, in batting order:

Jeremy Rabus, SS
Heather Corley, 2B

Michael Hoffman, LF
Jon Cournoyer, RF

Andrew Torch, 1B
Alicia LaChance, CF

Greg Edmondson, 3B

Kim Humphries, C

Robert Longyear, P

Longyear, of course, would be the right-handed starting pitcher staff ace. The ace lefty starting pitcher would be Dana Smith. The closer would be Eric Woods. And the erratic, bearded setup man out of the bullpen, for the problematic 8th inning, would be Tony Renner.

During interleague play, we'd move Cournoyer to DH to rest his wheels and field Gina Alvarez in right (she would bat sixth, moving everyone else down a notch in the batting order).

I'm the manager of this imaginary team, of course, with Thom Fletcher my pitching coach, Stefene Russell my bench coach, and Matt Fernandes (third base) and Stephen Lindsley (first base) coaching the runners and relaying signals.

I know this is all crazy, but I believe every word of it. I can field a baseball team of anything. Anything I care about can be transposed to positions on a baseball diamond and in a batting order. I know a surprisingly large number of other people who feel the same way I do.

By the way, it's a fun road trip game. For example, field a baseball team of your favorite cities, or American states, or U.S. presidents, or film directors, or sandwiches, or alcoholic beverages. Anything. Former girlfriends (or boyfriends). Novelists. Poets, God knows - which is how this whole thing got started, in more ways than one.

If you won't more of this daft, batty stuff, then you should read my essay about the time I mailed a baseball to the Australian poet Les Murray, asking for an autograph, and he mailed it back to me in New York from Bunyah, New South Wales.

It is fitting that this poetry score and art invitational ended with an autographed baseball, because we scored and they made art to Les' poem The Sydney Highrise Variations - and this entire project began with that baseball, mailed back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, between an American rock musician and an Australian poet.