Little known fact: Robert Frost once wrote a poem prophesying Tom Brady.

The poet laureate of the United Kingdom, Carol Ann Duffy, wrote a poem about David Beckham. For those ignorant Americans who don't keep up to date on such things, David Beckham still plays football (or soccer, what have you)(with uber-stylish hair--always). And football is still monumental to most British folks. Beckham blew out his Achilles the other day and might miss the World Cup in a few months. This is tragic, if only because sightings of Victoria Beckham will immediately decrease by half with his absence.

Duffy's receiving a good deal of flack for writing such a poem, but I congratulate her. Or at least applaud her. Or possibly just shrug my shoulders and offer a "eh, doesn't hurt" vibe. Poetry needs a kick start. Gone are the days when poets were famous among common folk. Stop 500 people on a street in Fitchburg or Boston, and only one person might know who the current poet laureate of the United States is--and odds are that one person is the cousin/mechanic/paper boy of the poet laureate of the United States.

So, here's Duffy's poem to Beckham in its entirety, which alludes to the Achilles myth from history:

Myth's river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden 
boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised,
they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, 
silver songs...
but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, 
the crowd's roar,
and it was sport, not war,

his charmed foot on the ball...

but then his heel, his heel, his heel...

It looks to me like Duffy is trying to single-handedly bring back the popularity of the ellipsis. I haven't seen so many dramatic pauses since I stopped watching Days of Our Lives a few years back.

Hey, I'll take it. How many sports-centric guys will actually read a poem--albeit just one, ellipsis-mad poem--for the first time in decades as a result of this? Today, poems to David Beckham. Tomorrow, haikus to Kobe Bryant.