The Black Bat: A Supernatural Baseball Epic, by Simon Pole. Robot Rider Press, 2025.
I us’ally do not take a shot
With po’try books. They are a lot
Of work for me to comprehend
And I feel foolish in the end
Because I do not think that I
Am qualified to render my
Opinion on the poet’s work
And end up looking like a jerk.
But The Black Bat by Simon Pole
Was such a pleasure that I thought
To offer my critique like this
Was a propos and that I ought
To at least try my views to give
On this fun book and how it made
Me think of scene from TV show
Where use of poem did make it “glow.”*
Pole’s epic is both new and old
of heroes, villains, damsels all
But poetry does make it bold
In telling of a rise and fall,
Of good and vile and in between.
All these combine to set the scene.
It surely is most different
but time in reading is well spent.
It brings to mind the “Mighty Case”
but told in much more darker space.
And not unlike “The Walking Dead”
instills an ever-mounting dread.
But as these struggles all unfold
I won’t go into spoiler mode.
Pole does much better than can I
to tell his tale with discipline.
His writing flows and keep in line
with classic pattern in his rhyme.
You’ve noticed that my rhyming schemes
Are out of whack but that’s just fine.
You get the gist of what I mean
within my writing of each line.
And now that I have said my piece
My poetry I will decrease.
And leave you with a parting thought:
Pole’s Black Bat really must be bought.
* The show was an episode of Band of Brothers in which one character with a penchant for storytelling offers a poem about an unfortunate incident on night watch that ended on a happier note. You can watch it here. I thought of it immediately as I started The Black Bat.
is available on Amazon.com,
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