Help finding a poem!?!

[LearnedHand]

Sorry. I know this isn't the Poetry Forum, but I was hoping DU's readerly bunch could help me find a poem. Sometime around 1991 or 1992, a magazine (The Atlantic? The New Yorker?) published a found-line poem composed from actual sports articles and whose last line or two was "Muhammad Ali, save us from ourselves." The poem has haunted me ever since I read it, and I have searched in every way I know how, including microfiche magazine copies in libraries, magazines' online poetry archives, poetry.org, googled the line, etc. I've exhausted my resources, I think. Anyone here remember reading the poem? Even better, do you know the title and/or the poet? Thanks in advance.

[Tx4obama]

1. Here's a poem that mentions sports and Ali

SEARCHING FOR ABRAHAM LINCOLN
http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column98l2.html

Might not be the right one, but take a look anyway ;)

[LearnedHand]

5. Not the one, but I like this one too!

[babydollhead]

2. is it this?

Carl Sagan
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
— Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)

[LearnedHand]

6. Thanks, but unfortunately not the one

I swear, it was a wonderful poem. It was made up of found lines from sports articles.

[babydollhead]

3. you can search the New Yorker archive with the phrase

maybe the titles of the articles will jog your memory

[LearnedHand]

7. Thanks. I'll give that a try.

Last time I checked, their poetry search wasn't very good, and I'm not even sure it was the New Yorker. It's been driving me crazy, to say the least.

[SharonAnn]

4. Thanks for the reminder! I searched again for a poem AND I FOUND IT!

The Google is wonderful!

I'd looked for it off and one for almost 10 years and could never find it. I even wrote the Dayton Daily News 5-6 years ago asking about it, since it was published in their newspaper in the early 1980's.

Today I found it! It's on the website of a retired newspaperman, and he recently used it for an "art" project.

It was a favorite of ours and was on our refrigerator for almost 20 years, until my Siamese cat decide to nibble on it. By the time I realized that he was nibbling on it, half the poem was gone.

It was always special to us, especially the last line, "I love you big as 20 whales".

http://www.charleystough.com/ (between the Jan. 27, 2009 and the Jan. 15, 2009 entries)

"20 Whales"

Love's measurements are usually engineered
In terms of carats. or bags from boutique sales.
Someone I know played it by ear
And said, "I love you big as 20 whales."
Sweet as champagne at the finish line,
Bright as diamonds dipped out by the pail,
A rolling tide of pride runs down your spine
When someone's love comes to you by the whale.
The packaging of passion you too seldom find,
Cetacean squadrons' worth of love, to keep.
Will you take it home? Does the landlord mind?
How many hugs do whales need to make them go to sleep?
When someone says "I love you," don't investigate
How much, how deep, how wide it has to be.
The oceans always bring you honest weight.
All, you get all, everything there is of me.
And when the strength or light or wisdom fails
Just say, "I love you big as 20 whales."

[LearnedHand]

8. Nice!

[BlueIris]

9. Oooh, stumper.

I'll see what I can do.

[BlueIris]

10. Re: New Yorker having possibly published it...don't suppose you were wrong about the year?

While searching the New Yorker archives, I found that the cover for the April 5, 1993 issue features baseball themed art. Can't find a table of contents for that issue, but maybe your poem is in there.

[LearnedHand]

12. It could be 1993

I subscribed to the New Yorker for a year or so until I found I couldn't keep up with the weekly issues. :+ . I'll check that issue.

[Goblinmonger]

11. On the Muhammad Ali poem concept

Check out Sherman Alexi's poem "Split Decisions." It's wonderful.

Glad you found your poem.

[LearnedHand]

13. I WILL!

I ADORE Sherman Alexi! His poetry, his films, his novels. I saw him live once, and he also does frikkin' HILARIOUS stand-up comedy.

[pitohui]

14. it seems to me i vaguely remember it

in which case i would search the nation as well as the new yorker and the atlantic