Pretend the Ball Is Named Jim Crow: The Story of Josh Gibson - Hardcover

Hairston, Dorian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813198879 ISBN 13: 9780813198873

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2024

Synopsis

Joshua "Josh" Gibson (1911–1947) is a baseball legend―one of the greatest power hitters in the Negro Leagues, and in all of baseball history. At the height of his career, this trailblazing athlete suffered grueling physical ailments, lost his young wife who died giving birth to their twins, and endured years of Jim Crow–era segregation and discrimination―all the while breaking records on the ball field.

Dorian Hairston's debut poetry collection explores the Black American experience through the lens of Gibson's life and seventeen-year baseball career, which culminated in his posthumous election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Hairston brilliantly reconstructs the personas of Gibson and others in his orbit whose encounters with white supremacy interweave with the inevitability of losing loved ones. By alternating between the perspectives of Gibson, members of his family, and contemporary Black baseball players, Hairston captures the complexity and the pain of living under the oppressive weight of grief and racial discrimination.

Emotive, prescient, and absorbing, these powerful poems address social change, culture, family, race, death, and oppression―while honoring and giving voice to Gibson and a voiceless generation of African Americans.

About this title

About the Author

Dorian Hairston is a poet, scholar, and former University of Kentucky baseball player from Lexington, Kentucky. He is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and his work has appeared in Shale, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and pluck!

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813198879
• ISBN 13: 9780813198873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 118