Inua Ellams wrote a poem entitled “Portrait of Prometheus as a Basketball Player” in which he imagined “the fire stolen from the gods to be shaped as a basketball, and Prometheus dunking light into the world.” [Note: Ctrl + F for “Portrait of Prometheus” at this link to read the poem.] Over at Magma, Ellams discusses “the process of composing a poem, as a coach might stitch a [basketball] team together.” Perhaps all of this explains Patricia Lockwood’s interest in Shaquille O’Neal?
Basketball, Poetry, and the Union of the Two
A Little Bird Told Me
Catapult has a new anonymous column in which a little bird called Magpie collects nice things that happen each week.
Storytelling Addict
“Storytelling, she added, is a central part of Native American life, and, inevitably an obsessive part of hers. ‘It’s probably the most selfish thing I do,’ she said. ‘Truly. I don’t do it for anyone else. I do it because I have the addict’s need to get lost in the story.’” Louise Erdrich discusses her new novel LaRose.
Looking for Cleopatra
Recommended Reading: This love letter to Shakespeare's Cleopatra, "the only woman in the world." Here's a bonus infographic that compares Cleopatra to everyone's favorite Khaleesi, Daenerys Targaryen.
My Dear Meat Paste
The Scottish poet Robert Burns’s “Address to a Haggis” might well be the most famous ode to a food product in the English canon. At The Paris Review Daily, Sadie Stein celebrates Burns's birthday by reflecting on the poem, which starts off by describing haggis as the “chieftain of the pudding race.”