Warsaw Sparks

This idiosyncratic memoir of an American poet and fiction writer's experience coaching a baseball team in Warsaw is a potpourri of politics, social commentary, the author's family history, humor, poems and, of course, baseball. Gildner examines the sport in order to address other concerns: the poem "A Mouse," about a player getting hit with a pitch during practice and the apologetic, affectionate kisses of the pitcher, ends as the narrator tries "to picture / something like this in the States. / Maybe at a nursery school you'd see it, / where people have good manners, love, / and other things to teach." All the poems resonate, detailing characters and situations introduced elsewhere.