โAutumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohioโ by James Wright is a poem about working-class men attending a football game to watch their sons.ย
James Wright's poem uses a game of football as the primary vehicle to encourage the onlooking fathers to assess their own lives. The incongruous beauty of the brutal sport brings their own choices into focus and serves to highlight the regrets they hold. The fact that their sons are capable of playing so well makes the fathers feel both hopeful and ashamed.
In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,