Jennifer Grotz: On Poetry and Boxing (July 2012)

Jennifer Grotz investigates the centuries-old fascination of poets and fiction writers for the sport of boxing. Drawing from John Keats’s and Joyce Carol Oates’s writings on the “sweet science of boxing,“ Grotz suggests that understanding elements of the sport may illuminate concerns of the writer; both endeavors, she says, require the workings of the imagination, or Keats’s “Fancy”, in their preparation and execution.