Nicholas Mainieri

Author Website

A (baseball) poem

Each April, the literary magazine Hobart rolls out a month-long baseball issue. This is one of the greatest things that happens in the world of literary publishing, or in the world in general, and I look forward to it each and every year.

Aaron Burch and the Hobart crew have been kind enough to include things I’ve written in several past baseball editions. This year marks my sixth inclusion, I think, and I’m quite proud of that. Normally I send over a short story or short essay–and sometimes I participate as part of the “expert panel” for predicting the new Major League season.

This year, however, I wrote a poem. It is my first published poem. I hope you like it.

It is called “Baseball’s Cruel Lexicon.”

91%

Hey, folks.

My friend John Richie is a local filmmaker, here in New Orleans. He’s a talented guy. His first film, Shell Shocked, is a powerful look at the victims of gun violence in our city. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend watching it immediately. It’s won a slew of awards and has screened in dozens of cities.

He’s now working on his second film, called 91%, which I gather is going to be a more expansive look at gun culture in America, while also zeroing in on the question of background checks. From the film’s page: If 91% of the Americans polled post-Newtown favored background checks on all gun sales, then why did the U.S. House of Representatives fail to respond? Although the U.S. Senate tried to compromise with the gun lobby on legislation mandating background checks, that bill still fell short of the 60 “yea” votes necessary for passage. Why?

I’ve gone to the film’s Kickstarter page and backed the project, and I hope you’ll consider doing the same. This film seeks to answer some of the most pressing questions facing our society.

And while you’re at it, please check out Shell Shocked on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

 

web wrasslin’

So I’m working on getting my act together on the web. I’ve claimed parcels of land on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram. Much content is forthcoming, and I’ve got plans for eventual overhauls of the site here, but if you happen to swing those ways in the meantime, please do drop in and say hello.