Go Play Outside

Product Description In Go Play Outside, poet Robert Cooperman chronicles his first, unconditional love, basketball even if the affair has been unrequited, Cooper is far better at writing poetry than he ever was at hoops. Cooperman begins with the origins of the game itself, from the legendary peach baskets of Dr. James Naismith, arising out of that brutal and boring winter of 1891, in Springfield, Massachusetts. From that origin point, progressing into the early professional game of the Twenties. Cooperman than takes us fast forward to his own discovery of the beauty of the game while watching early NBA contests. Evolving with his attempts at playing the game himself, on his own block, in schoolyards. Finally, trying out, unsuccessfully for his high school team. Thereafter, rejuvenated with his witness of the recently late, great Elgin Baylor, Cooperman's all-time sports idol, the player, he asserts, who changed the game from horizontal to vertical.Along the way, we get pictures of what it is about the sport that he loves: its flow, its kinetic "music," its balletic grace and style, as when a perfectly attempted jump shot swishes through the bucket for a score. Maybe it's too much to assert that basketball is a metaphor for life, but without the game, Cooperman's life would have been far less rich. And like life, basketball requires hard work, dedication, practice, and maybe a little bit of genius, or at least moxie. All of which are on display in this lovely collection. About the Author Robert Cooperman grew up on the not so mean streets of Brooklyn and still remembers playing basketball in almost every schoolyard and playground in the borough. Passionately, if not very well. Later he supplemented that first love with a love of poetry, and studied the art at the University of Denver's Ph.D. program in Literature and Creative Writing. Cooperman has taught composition and literature at the University of Georgia; Bowling Green State University, in Ohio; and the University of Baltimore. He's also led various poetry writing workshops on an ad hoc basis. Cooperman has had more than twenty volumes of poetry published, among them In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Western Reflections Books), which won the Colorado Book Award for Poetry. The Widow's Burden (Western Reflections Books) was the runner-up for the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West. Draft Board Blues (FutureCycle Press) was named One of The Ten Best Books by a Colorado Author for 2017 by Westword Magazine. My Shtetl won the Holland Award from Logan House Press. Cooperman's most recent collection is The Ghosts and Bones of Troy (Aldrich Press), which posits, what if Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and his wanderings with what we'd now call PTSD? Also forthcoming from Aldrich Press is Reefer Madness, partly field trip through Cooperman's misspent youth and partly inspired by the fact that the Girl Scouts of Colorado had okayed the sale of their cookies outside of the state's pot dispensaries. Some things you just can't make up. In addition, Cooperman's two most recent chapbooks, Saved by the Dead (Liquid Light Press) and All Our Fare-Thee-Wells (Finishing Line Press), are love letters of sorts to his other obsession, the Grateful Dead. Cooperman lives in Denver with his wife Beth.