[Julie Steiner]

DRAFT THREE

Eyes on the Prize

The athlete hopes to see herself a winner.
Hard work and hunger mean the haloed gleam
of medals. Fame. Endorsements. Self-esteem.
She aches to be more perfect. Stronger. Thinner.

The parent sees herself a champion spinner
of plates. Her desperation’s kept this dream
alive. She’s had to sacrifice and scheme
to see her kid top-ranked, from rank beginner.

The coaches see a harvest to be reaped
and winnowed. They’re disposable, these youths
whose bodies they will hone with cold precision.

The fans see miracles. And heroes heaped
with glory. And the touching, touched-up truths
between, and in, the ads on television.



DRAFT TWO (plus tweaks in brown and red)

Eyes on the Prize

The teenaged athlete sees herself a winner.
Hard work and hunger mean the haloed gleam
of medals. Fame. Endorsements. Self-esteem.
She aches to be more perfect. Stronger. Thinner.

The parent sees herself a champion spinner
of plates. Her desperation’s kept this dream
alive. She’s had to sacrifice and scheme
to see her kid top-ranked, from rank beginner.

The coaches see a harvest to be reaped
and winnowed. They’re disposable, these youths
whose bodies they will hone with cold precision.

The institutions see their coffers heaped
with feel-good gold. The fans see touched-up truths
that keep them watching ad-choked television.


L1: The teenaged athlete sees herself a winner. >> The gym rat sees herself a future winner. >> (returned to) The teenaged athlete sees herself a winner.
L2: Hard work will prove her worthy of the gleam >> Hard work and hunger mean the haloed gleam
L12: The politicians see their countries heaped >> The politicians see their homelands heaped >> The institutions see their coffers heaped
L14: that keep them watching ad-packed television. >> between expensive ads on television. >> that keep them watching ad-choked television.


DRAFT ONE

Glory

The athlete sees herself a future winner.
Hard work will prove her worthy of the gleam
of medals. Fame. Endorsements. Self-esteem.
She aches to be more perfect. Stronger. Thinner.

The parent sees herself a champion spinner
of plates. Her desperation’s kept this dream
alive. She’s had to sacrifice and scheme
to make her kid top-ranked, from rank beginner.

The coaches see a harvest to be reaped
and winnowed. They’re disposable, these youths
whose bodies they will hone with cold precision.

The politicians see their countries heaped
with feel-good gold. The fans see hand-picked truths.
All see themselves in their Olympic vision.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Julie—

Remember when we used to just tell our kids to go out and play? Go ride your bike, get a pick-up basketball game going at the schoolyard. Now parents schedule every leisure minute, and the few kids who actually become professional athletes are plagued with mental health issues.

I like the one-word sentences, strong accents and caesurae in S1 to suggest the driving, relentless pressure these kids (and their parents) endure. I also like the plate-spinning trope, humorously showing how parents with one car and multiple children have to keep the scheduled activities going. The sestet moves into darker territory. Nice job!

[Carl Copeland]

The “one-word sentences” worked really well for me too, and the enjambments are great, especially the humorous “of plates” and the ominous “and winnowed.” I first read “their” in L14 as “their own,” but ultimately decided it was the politicians’ vision. I don’t know if that’s a nit or not. Otherwise, the poem delivers its social commentary without a hitch.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Julie,

I like the movement from the athlete, to the parent, to the coaches etc, all playing a part in the production-line manufacture of ordinary girl into a sporting icon. It suddenly made me think of "Who Killed Cock Robin?". Which then made me wonder if the tale couldn't be given a slightly darker twist. At the moment, the poem seems to straightforwardly narrate the different, often selfish, interests that various people have in this girl's journey. But the ending doesn't suggest anything other than her being a sporting success, so it left me a bit deflated.

What would happen if you reworked the poem into the past tense? You would get just a hint that something went wrong with this sporting dream. But hopefully it would be subtle enough to keep the poem from melodrama.


The athlete saw herself a future winner.
Hard work would prove her worthy of the gleam
of medals. Fame. Endorsements. Self-esteem.
She ached to be more perfect. Stronger. Thinner.

The parent saw herself a champion spinner
of plates. Her desperation kept this dream
alive


etc

(Could be a terrible idea...)

Mark

[Joe Crocker]

I think Mark's idea of putting it in the past tense works really well. It adds a lovely uncertain melancholy.

[Julie Steiner]

Thanks, Glenn, Carl, Matt, and Joe. Draft Two is posted above in response to your comments, with tweaks to the title, L1, and the final tercet.


Glenn, it's very reassuring to hear that this is basically coming across as intended.

Carl, I've tweaked the ending to eliminate the "their Olympic vision" and to play up the new title. I wanted to leave the sport unspecified, and I suppose that the Olympics don't need to be specified, either. Actually, I think that the athlete and parent could be either male or female, but I did decide to individualize those two characters a bit before zooming the camera out to coaches, politicians, and fans.

Matt [Mark! Sorry!], I'm very pleased that the production-line vibe is working, and I think I'll keep the poem in a generalized present tense for that reason, rather than making it a past-tense, Based on a True Story vibe. I have another poem in the works about the predatory situations perpetuated through adults' unwillingness to see what they didn't want to see, behind the scenes of youth sports.

Joe, thanks for your view of Matt's [Mark's!] suggestion. One of my other poems about young athletes will go into some darker territory, I promise....


This sonnet was inspired by the Salvador Rueda sonnet "The Kanephoroi (Basket-Bearers of the Acropolis)" that I'm currently workshopping on the Translation Board, in which a Greek religious ritual emphasizes how appearances are being made to match cultural ideals of youthful beauty and good moral character. The ritual hero-worship surrounding certain idolized athletes isn't far from the scenario Rueda describes, in my opinion. And the original Olympic games were of course a religious spectacle.

Thanks again for your interest and advice.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hello, Julie! 'Tis I, not Matt!

I wouldn't want you to think you were dismissing someone else's brilliant idea haha.

[Julie Steiner]

Sorry, can't read past the first two letters of a four-letter name! Thanks, Mark.

[David Callin]

Great rhyming, Julie - and a truth well told.

Cheers

David

[Yves S L]

Julie,

I cannot help but see this as a sequence of reductionist caricatures, in the way it so emphatically imposes what a class of people must be thinking or feeling.