Poetic Hill by Karen Lyon

The Folger’s virtual book club features discussions of Shakespeare-related books on the first Thursday of every month.

“Baseball Cards,” for example, a nostalgic look at a boyhood hobby, becomes a plangent reflection on racism: “Black history was years ahead of us / so when we gathered in the play-ground / we traded away our baseball cards / with the black faces.” A poem for Glenn Burke, the first openly gay major league baseball player, becomes a poignant plea for understanding and toler-ance. And an homage to Emmett Ashford pays moving tribute to the first African American umpire in the major leagues.

Using baseball as metaphor, Miller instills his own meaning into the language of the game. In “The Changeup,” he asks, “What is the difference between a changeup and a coup?” “The changeup is dress rehearsal for fascism. / Citizens soon find themselves trapped in the hitter’s box / Wrapping a baseball bat with a flag. / Running from the field into the stands. / Smashing the score-board and changing the score.” And in another powerfully political poem, he likens a current gu-bernatorial candidate to the major league record holder for career stolen bases:

Poem for Stacy Abrams

You’re Rickey Henderson today. You’re leading off. You have power and speed. You have flex and flair. You’re brash. You’re Black.

If they accuse you of being a thief Steal first, second, and then third. You’re Rickey Henderson today Sliding head first past Ty Cobb And voting restrictions in Georgia.

Whether he’s addressing the political or the personal—as in the title poem, in which the narrator rues the fact that he never knows “what signs to put down” when meeting a woman—Miller never loses touch with the reader, striking a resonant chord that will echo long after the final poem is read.

E. Ethelbert Miller is the author of two memoirs and several poetry collections, including “If God Invented Baseball” and “When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery.”

Virtual Book Club

The renovated Folger Shakespeare Library won’t be open to the public until next year, but that doesn’t mean it’s idle. The online Book Club, “Words, Words, Words,” which meets the first Thursday of every month, is still going strong.

The November session will feature “Ramón and Julieta” by Alana Quintana Albertson, a romance focusing on the Latinx community that was chosen by NPR as one of the “Books We Love.” And on December 1, the group with discuss “Black Cake” by Charmaine Wilkerson, a New York Times bestseller that deals with estranged siblings exploring their puzzling inheritance.

The Book Club is free and open to all. Folger staff moderate the discussion and provide historical context, trivia, and items from the library’s collection that connect to the books. To regis-ter, visit www.folger.edu and click on Performances & Events. u

THE POETIC HILL

by Karen Lyon

Gina Sangster is a DC native who grew up on Capitol Hill and raised her three children here. A therapist, she has had poetry and essays published in various small magazines, the Hill Rag, Dis-trict Lines, and the Washington Post. Gina says she is “probably the most undisciplined writer I know—I never follow the protocol of daily writing and I’m grateful that my muse hasn’t given up on me!”

She says that the poem below comes from a distinct memory she has of being with her mother soon after she learned of her cancer diagnosis at age 70. Libby Sangster lived two more years and continued to run her antique shop, “Antiques on the Hill,” until about a month before she died on November 20th, 1990. The Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals (CHAMPS) subsequently designated a Retailer of the Year award in her honor. “On her birthday that year, September 29th,” Gina recalls, “ the corner of 7th and North Carolina Avenue was cov-ered with flowers brought by friends and loyal customers. She was a neighborhood icon.”

Looking Ahead

For my mother Libby Sangster 1918-1990

Eventually, they’ll go on without me – the two sisters, their children, their brother. I won’t get to see how it all turns out, and of course, neither will they, farther down the road.

This was my mother’s plea, spoken to no one, everyone, the air around us in her beautiful dining room, when she learned she’d die sooner than expected: “But I want to be here, With you, and Sally, and Gillette…”

She didn’t get that wish much longer, leaving them at four and eight, me just shy of 40. I can only hope I get an extended stay, now that the age of her death is fast upon me.