40 for 34 #33 - June 14

The Poetic Artistry of Basketball

Stanley Plumly, a Maryland Poet Laureate, Writes About the Time

Len Bias Met Celebrated Poet Gwendolyn Brooks

It was, as I recall, a 7 o’clock reading. The structure of the event called for me to introduce Gwendolyn Brooks, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Once I’d finished, I would enter from stage right to come to the podium. For a moment, Brooks and I were standing there together, when, suddenly, from the opposite side of the stage there arrives a very tall young man bearing a large bouquet of red roses.

It was Len Bias. His presence came at the request of Joyce Ann Joyce, a professor of Afro

American Literature at Maryland. Bias took Joyce’s class in the 1983 fall semester, and as Joyce explained it, “graciously” earned a D grade despite the fact he missed classes frequently and flunked the two assignments he completed. It was not her policy to flunk athletes.

Joyce developed a friendship with Bias. She arranged the reading by Brooks and asked Bias if he would present Brooks with a bouquet of flowers. She thought Bias’s gesture would help show a link between the excellence of black basketball players and black poets and showcase the artistry of both.

She had hoped that Bias’s participation could translate to increased respect for poetry to the level students respect basketball players. Joyce said Bias was pleased that she respected him enough to ask him to present Brooks with the gift and that “he was as excited about the idea as I was.”

The Maryland basketball banquet was being held at the same time at the Stamp Student Union about a half mile away, but that did not stop Bias from surprising Brooks and everyone else attending the event.

He shakes my hand and then embraces the diminutive Brooks and places the great flowers into her open arms. The audience goes slightly wild. I can see the tears in Brooks’s eyes and everyone can see the smile on Len Bias’s face. At the reception, we all talked, but who knows what about. Likely we talked about the future, notably the future of the basketball star.

Excerpted from the book,

Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Buy autographed copies

as a Father's Day Gift

The audio for this post was narrated by the author,

Dave Ungrady.

And listen to more about Len's early life in Episode 2 of the narrative podcast series, Len Bias: A Mixed Legacy

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