Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball Poems

Jesse Ball Biography

Jesse Ball (born June 7, 1978) is an American poet and novelist. He has published novels, volumes of poetry, short prose, and drawings. His works are distinguished by the use of a spare style and have been compared to those of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. Early Life and Education. Ball was born into a middle-class, English-speaking Irish-Sicilian family in Port Jefferson, New York, on Long Island. Ball's father worked in Medicaid; his mother worked in libraries. His brother, Abram, was born with downs syndrome and attended a school some distance from the place where they lived. Ball attended Port Jefferson High School, and matriculated at Vassar College. Following Vassar, Ball attended Columbia University, where he earned an MFA and met the poet Richard Howard. Howard helped the then 24-year-old poet publish his first volume, March Book, with Grove Press.)

The Best Poem Of Jesse Ball

Inside the Stove

Inside the stove, he found
a passageway, leading to a set of stairs.
This caused him a great deal of worry
as well as elation and gladness of living.
He did not, however, venture
into the oven, but sent his little brother in
in his stead. This seemed at first
a good idea, but when the brother
had been gone three days, he began
to second-guess the wisdom
of his rash choice. He'd go in after him,
he decided. But the passage
had shrunk by then, and no normal-sized
person could fit through. Yes, that's it,
I sent him in because, from a purely physical
standpoint, I myself could never have gone.
And besides, he mumbled to himself,
it's probably nice in there.

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