Poetry Prompt: Playing as a Kid

Where's the best place to play your favorite sport when you were a kid, like ages 4-6? Describe in terms of instructions, as in the poem "How to Play Night Baseball" by Jonathan Holden. Use specific descriptions and details about your favorite spot to play, whether it's your driveway, a field, the living room, or your grandparents house. You can also use "Sock Basketball" as inspiration.

"How to Play Night Baseball"
by Jonathan Holden

A pasture is best, freshly


mown so that by the time a grounder's


plowed through all that chewed, spit-out


grass to reach you, the ball


will be bruised with green kisses. Start


in the evening. Come


with a bad sunburn and smelling of chlorine,


water still crackling in your ears.


Play until the ball is khaki-


a movable piece of the twilight-


the girls' bare arms in the bleachers are pale,


and heat lightning jumps in the west. Play


until you can only see pop-ups,


and routine grounders get lost in


the sweet grass for extra bases.

"Sock Basketball"

by Floyd Skloot

A bottomless, lidless shoebox
taped above my bedroom door
became the hoop, with a pair
of rolled-up socks as the ball.

I was preparing for the growth
spurt that never arrived. Slam
dunk, spin moves, sky hook,
fingertips against the ceiling.

Game after game as the clock
ticked the last seconds down
the score was tied, the crowd
went wild. I stood in the light

from a window, ball in hand,
only a bed and burly chest
of drawers between me and
victory, calm in the knowledge

that in this tight space I had all
the moves, the perfect touch.