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Golf Opposites

One suggestion often given to new golfers is to learn by studying what a good professional does when practicing or playing. Learning from the pros extends to poetry. I often get ideas from the best poets. For example, I recently began to read the poetry of Richard Wilbur, one of the great 20th century American poets. Among the many, many poems Wilbur has written, he wrote a series of word-play poems having to do with opposites. Here is a short example (more can be found in his book, Collected Poems 1943 – 2004):

The opposite of doughnut? Wait
A minute while I meditate.
This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it!
A cookie with a hole around it.

Taking Wilbur’s idea as a starting point, I wrote two golf “opposite” poems.

CLUB AND BALL

What is the opposite of club?
It might be ball, but there’s a rub.
If you don’t hit it well enough,
The opposite of club is muff!

HOME AND AWAY

The opposite of away is home;
That wouldn’t crack a putter’s dome.
But if you’re away and in a match,
Then I would say there is a catch.
You putt first and so recast,
The opposite of away is last!

Leon S. White, PhD

Comments

  1. The opposite of Sand Trap? Whoa!
    That’s where my golf ball tends to go,
    Instead of where it ought to roll:
    Upon the green and in the hole.

Trackbacks

  1. […] a previous Post (https://golfpoet.com/2010/10/04/golf-opposites/) I I included two word-play poems based on the idea of “opposites.” The famous American […]

  2. […] October 2010 and again in in September of this year I published poems about “opposites” based on an […]

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