Shot Clocks: Poems for the WNBA

by Stephen Burt

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Fourteen poems and an essay from Burt take on, take in, and take up the teams and the games of the Women's National Basketball Assocation, or WNBA. The poems—some in rhyming forms, some in slippery new ones—encompass word games, in-jokes, on-court moves and countermoves, and serious speculation on the enduring subjects of lyric love, fame, competition, solitude, obscure heroism, nostalgia, anger, longing, blocked shots, and the value of a well-thrown entry pass. The essay (first published in The Believer ) looks at the mindset of one committed fan along with the past andfuture of the still-growing league.

Genres: Poetry, Essays

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

I write books about poetry, essays on other people’s poems, books of my own poems, and shorter pieces about poems, poets, poetry, comics, science-fiction writers, political controversies, obscure pop groups, and the WNBA.

My published books are: Close Calls With Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (Graywolf, Spring 2009), The Forms of Youth: Adolescence and 20th Century Poetry (Columbia University Press, 2007), Parallel Play: Poems (Graywolf, 2006), Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden (editor with Hannah Brooks-Motl, Columbia University Press, 2005), Randall Jarrell and His Age (Columbia University Press, 2002), and Popular Music: Poems (Center for Literary Publishing, 1999).

I am an Associate Professor of English at Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, I spent several years at Macalester College, first as an Assistant Professor, then as an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English. I received my Ph.D. in English from Yale University in 2000, my A.B. from Harvard in 1994.