Aaron Coleman, a PhD student in comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, returns to the field to recite from memory his poem, “American Football.” A former college football player in Michigan, Coleman explores his relationship to the sport. “Physically, mentally, emotionally,” he says, “but also how it shaped my identity.” This video was produced as part of a larger series that celebrates the contributions of poets and poetry at Washington University in St. Louis.
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American Football (transcript)
I wanted to be a trophy before I wanted to be a man.
I wanted to be a weapon before I wanted to be safe.
My helmet is a mask. Pencil-thin bars
cage my face, fiberglass and hard white pads
hug my skull. I know the boy I am. I know
the boy in the body of a man
who wants to be precise violence.
A skilled threat on a torn field —
our bodies decorate the coliseum ground.
We reset and collide. We draw each line
where faith bangs against brutality, where
pain headlongs into desire. I remember
my ringing ears and trotting softly
to the sideline called home
after I launched my body into a boy
who cradles a ball and escapes
in zagging lines, side to side as if his life
depends on it. Get up off the ground. I fear
what I’ve done to my body —
my blood filled with the sound
of mothers chanting battle cries
over their rampant sons. The quiet brooding
fathers. Maybe I’ll always be the boy trying to find the eyes
of a miraculous girl lollingin the stands, deep in her own game, looking away
from the cage over my face —
sprawled in my first autumn,
I learn the taste of my own sweat —
to be black and uniformed defines
my body as a sacrifice. I wanted to be a trophy
before I wanted to be a man. I wanted to be a weapon
before I wanted to be safe. I fear I’m still that brutal dream,
body strapped inside devotion —
I can’t imagine my calloused hands relaxed
at my sides, their tenderness left open.
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