After leaving a career in music (classical guitar) because of a hand injury, David Linebarger earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Davis. Currently a Professor of Humanities at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, his publications include scholarly articles on Wallace Stevens and Modern Music, poetry in over 25 journals, and two chapbooks of poems: “War Stories” (Pudding House) and “Bed of Light” (Finishing Line Press). Recent works of creative nonfiction appear in Cagibi and Another Chicago Magazine. A nationally ranked tennis player in his age group, his current book project is a collection of nonfiction prose poems on famous tennis players.
1945: The Enola Gay took off for Hiroshima. Don Budge and I, the world’s two best players, played a few miles away. A little action. Entertaining the troops. Army (Budge) vs. Navy (Riggs), that’s the way it is boys. Bets? Bets? I was just a pesky hustler, but I finally figured him out. He got […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. Situation: Having lost the first set, Simona is serving at 4-4 (15-15) in the second set against Sloane Stephens in the 2018 French Open Final. Sloane floats a weak return just past the service line, so Simona steps in and smacks an […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. La Tenista 3040 is prepared to play in two realms at once: 1) the year 3040 2) the mythological past. The Year 3040: A warming planet, biological weapons, alternate realities, cyborg cities . . . La Tenista 3040 is prepared. Like […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. Mark on his Painting: “Pat Cash occupies a special place in my young tennis heart. He was someone we all aspired to in Australia. At the junior tournaments we all wore the chequered head band and everyone leapt at the ball just […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. When the ancient Greeks sculpted the victors of an Olympic event, the goal was to produce not the athlete itself but the perfect, idealized image of the athlete, the body in rhythmos, the discus throw imagined as god-like, eternal. In Myron’s Discus […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. Pressure: “the exertion of a force on one body by another body, fluid, etc.” Item: Mouth ulcers every year when Wimbledon comes around. Cliché: Andy carries the weight of an entire nation, 76 years since the last male champion. Item: Murray […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. “It’s not just a boy’s club. We’ve got a sisterhood going.” –Lady Pink Bad Ass. That’s what I say to my daughters. That’s what they say to me. We repeat it for emphasis in hushed tones, reverence: Serena’s a Bad Ass. Diva of […]
Excerpts and links below from previous and forthcoming publications. Justine Henin: I watch Justine in slow motion, the transfer of weight from back to front foot, the coiling uncoiling of the legs the hips the shoulders the core. (Is it true she did a thousand sit ups a day?) Justine ‘s one-handed backhand, “the most […]
Check out my new book Tennis Players as Works of Art with artwork from 45 artists. This party was a once off. To win a gold medal in a Paralympics not only in my home country, but actually in the city of my birth where I lived would never happen again.—David Hall The gold medal’s been in […]
The Women will be published on June 4. Rafael Nadal: 4,500 rpm on the forehand. Borg’s topspin revolution doubled, squared. All that topspin means net clearance, safety, angles. The perfect weapon for clay, its wars of attrition. Bjorn Borg: I wanted to be Ringo Starr one year for Halloween. Long hair, girls screaming, rock star. […]