• Home
  • About
    • Straight Up
    • Jan Herman
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Sweet Words for the Sweet Science

June 20, 2010 by Jan Herman

Here’s one for the books — an attractively designed boxing anthology with heart, The Fighter Still Remains, just out from Fore Angels Press and DIBELLA Entertainment. I’m told all profits will go to the Berto Dynasty Foundation to benefit Project Medishare for Haitian earthquake relief.
The fact that the book has been brought out by an obscure press in collaboration with a fight promoter (who, for all I know, may be one and the same) probably means that no major publisher would touch it. It also means — pardon my cynicism — that the book is not likely to get much exposure and won’t earn much in the way of profits. But every penny for Haitian earthquake victims counts, right?
In any case, readers who buy it are shitsure going to get their money’s worth. Selected and edited by George Kimball and John Schulian, with an introduction by Taj Mahal, the anthology celebrates “boxing in poetry and song from Ali to Zevon.”
Selections include a wide range of choices, everything from “The World’s Shortest Poem,” by Muhammad Ali (“Me / Whee!”), and Paul Simon’s song lyrics for “The Boxer,” to Ishmael Reed’s “White Hope,” Warren Zevon’s “Boom Boom Mancini,” and “Ready to Rumble Rag,” a song by Kimball and Tom Paxton that consists of nothing but boxers’ names — or rather the monikers invented for them by fight fans and headline writers:

Marvelous Marvin Gaseous Cassius Gentleman Jim
Homicide Hank … Smokin’ Joe
Brown Bomber Little Red Pink Panther Al Blue Lewis …
Black Rhino
Neon Leon Iron Mike Toy Bulldog Fainting Phil … Jersey Joe
Wild Bull of the Pampas Bronx Bull Baby Bull Atomic Bull
… White Buffalo …
…
Kid Dynamite Kid Chocolate Dixie Kid Kid Diamond …
Baby Joe
Pretty Boy Golden Boy Honeyboy Schoolboy …
Boston Strong Boy
Hit Man Sandman Magic Man Pac Man … Cinderella Man
Ice Man Matchstick Man Orchid Man Quiet Man …
Ding-a-ling Man

There are also short prose excerpts from, among others, Leonard Gardner’s Fat City, J.P. Dunleavy’s The History of the Ginger Man, Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight, Pete Hamill’s Flesh and Blood, and Philip Roth’s The Facts, and even something by Ted Berrigan, a poet you would not normally associate with the sweet science.

The Fighter Still Remains came about when Kimball and Schulian finished editing a different anthology, At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, to be published by the Library of America in 2011. “Our dream for that book was to include fiction, poetry, song lyrics, and screenplay excerpts as well as nonfiction,” Schulian writes in an e-mail message. “But even at more than 500 pages, the book turned out to be best suited for nonfiction. It was George who had the idea to gather what you find in The Fighter Still Remains. The biggest heart of all belongs to him. My contributions were minimal. Mostly, I was a West Coast-based cheering section for George.” When not cheering for old Westerns, that is.

(Crossposted at HuffPo)

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

Archives

Blogroll

Abstract City
AC Institute
ACKER AWARDS New York
All Things Allen Ginsberg
Antiwar.com
arkivmusic.com
Artbook&
Arts & Letters Daily

Befunky
Bellaart
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal

C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Daily

The Daily Howler
Dark Roasted Blend
DCReport
Deep L
Democracy Now!

Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton

Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Flixnosh (David Elliott’s movie menu)
Fluxlist Europe

Good Reads
The Guardian
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics

Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post

Inter Press Service News Agency
The Intercept
Internet Archive (WayBackMachine)
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
IT: International Times, The Magazine of Resistance

Jacketmagazine
Clive James

Kanopy (stream free movies, via participating library or university)
Henry Kisor
Paul Krugman

Lannan Foundation
Los Angeles Times

Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Moloko Print
Movie Geeks United (MGU)
MGU: The Kubrick Series

National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art

Osborne & Conant
The Overgrown Path

Poets House
Political Irony
Poynter

Quanta Magazine

Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
Rhizome
Rwanda Project

Salon
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Stadtlichter Presse
Studs Terkel
The Synergic Theater

Talking Points Memo (TPM)
TalkLeft
The 3rd Page
Third Mind Books
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
t r u t h o u t

Ubu Web

Vox

The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
The Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
World Catalogue
World Newspapers, Magazines & News Sites

The XD Agency

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in