Category: Olympics

Halftime Report

2/9/2026

What'd y'all think of the Bad Bunny Halftime Show? I LOVED it! I loved the music, I loved the set, I loved the energy, I loved the surprises, I loved the symbolism, and I loved the message of love, unity and respect -- especially in this day and age when a single con man and loathsome sexual molester has worked relentlessly and tirelessly to divide this nation -- all to satisfy his unyielding greed and long-established racist worldview.

Of course, the sheep who follow that lecherous toad brayed and hee-hawed like asses when the NFL announced Bad Bunny as their pick for the 2026 halftime spectacular, so Toilet Paper USA announced that they would host a Klan rally as an alternative option for their fanatical flock. I did not see the TPUSA show, but word on the street is that viewership was as slim as an onion skin membrane and that the energy level matched that of a farmhand reporting to the barn to deworm a pig.

The frivolous fury of the Fascists and their halftime folly called to mind Emmett Lee Dickinson's poem, "That Hate is all they have," below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem "That Love is all there is," below on the right.

Who knows, maybe the buzz about Bad Bunny will inspire some maggots to rethink their narrow, bigoted views. Whaddaya think?

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

That Hate is all they have,
And all they have is Hate;
It's not okay, that hate should be
Just how you make us great.

By Emily Dickinson:

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

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Go for the Gold!

2/7/2026

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The Winter Olympics have begun in Milan, Italy!

In an Executive Order entitled "Venerating the Great Helmsman and Dear Father of All Americans," Trump has ordered all American gold medal winners to confer their medals upon him (but no silver or bronze medals from the "suckers and losers").

Trump's edict reminded me of Emmett Lee Dickinson's "He'll take it for himself," below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem "You cannot take itself," below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

He’ll take it for himself
From any Human soul –
That claim which makes him great
Is just a prize he stole –
Contemptible in Light
That every man behold
He’ll boast the honor as his own
His pinched and pilfered Gold –

By Emily Dickinson:

You cannot take itself
From any Human soul –
That indestructible estate
Enable him to dwell –
Impregnable as Light
That every man behold
But take away as difficult
As undiscovered Gold –

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Variety Show

8/6/2024

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I have a variety of items today.

1. If you’ve seen my recent #DickinsonDaily posts, then you know about my one-man crusade against the Poetry Foundation (they have one of Dickinson’s poems numbered incorrectly, and I’m trying to get them to fix that). Info is HERE.

Earlier this year I even emailed peeps at the Foundation AND the Emily Dickinson Museum about this issue, and I’d never heard back from any of them – until now! LOL.

Yesterday, I emailed a new contact at the Poetry Foundation (the gentleman at the front desk with whom I spoke when I visited the place in late July), and I copied my email to those I’d written to before just to give them an update.

Well, lo and behold, I heard from one of them – although the response did not, in any way, move my cause forward. LOL. Here’s what she said:

“Thank you for your email, and I'm sorry that I haven't responded. It is a good catch, and I hope that the Poetry Foundation fixes it!

I don't have any connections at the Poetry Foundation to know who to contact.”

I’ll keep you posted as to if/when I hear from anyone else.

2. Did you know that poetry used to be included in the Olympics? Just like the 100 meters, it was an official Olympic competition – but only from 1912 to 1948. This facet of the games was known as the “Pentathlon of the Muses” and medals were awarded for music, literature, poetry, and even architecture.

3. Speaking of the Olympics, did Dickinson ever use the word “Olympic” in any of her poems? Nope.

How about “athlete”? No again.

However, she did use the word “sport” in “She lay as if in play,” a poignant poem about the observation of a dead child.

This theme – of a dead child, particularly a dead girl – was used in more than a handful of poems – and the first line of this one, “She lay as if in play” called to mind another poem, “She died at play.”

Hmm. What is going on in that poem?

Take a look at both of these poems, and then I’ll include more about them tomorrow.

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Heavy Medal

2/12/2018

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From our current affairs editor Lemuel Stuart III:

Yes, Donald Trump wants a military parade -- we wrote about it HERE -- but now that he's watched some of the Olympics, he wants even more. He wants a gold medal ("I've always wanted one," he said), and he wants his own squad of synchronized cheerleaders ("Get me some of those cute Korean girls," he told Pence).

Pictured below on the left: Donald Trump models the "Olympic" medal Mike Pence got for him. Pence made an official request for a gold medal from the games in Pyeongchang, but the IOC said, "absolutely not." Therefore, he picked up a "Go Team" medal at the Party City in nearby Hoengseong, South Korea.

"I love it," said Trump. "I have a gold medal. This is like big stuff. I always wanted to get a gold medal, and Mikey got one for me. This was much easier than having to race down some mountain on a sled, and I have more medals than any other president, past or present."

Pictured below on the right: Trump's "Go Team" gold medal from the Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Pictured below left and right: Trump loved the North Korean cheerleaders at the Pyeongchange Olympics, so he has signed an Executive Order authorizing the White House to hire a one-hundred-plus synchronized cheer squad.

"The Kim Jong Un is one smart cookie," said Trump, "and he's got some pretty Korean ladies cheering for him. I knew from the minute I saw them that I needed a cheer squad too -- bigger and better than Kim's. I'm going to call them the MAGettes."

Visionary and poet Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) once wrote about an autocrat who felt the need to employ a cheer squad in his poem "With bigly overgushing words" (below on the left). His poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "A little overflowing word" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

With bigly overgushing words
That any, hearing, could infer
How odd he needs their Cheers
With Thunderation as they bray
Conditions worsen and decay,
As arrogance appears –

By Emily Dickinson:

A little overflowing word
That any, hearing, had inferred
For Ardor or for Tears,
Though Generations pass away,
Traditions ripen and decay,
As eloquent appears –

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Clean Sweep

2/10/2018

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From our 19th century historian Eudora Dickinson:

Did you know that Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) was the first person to receive a gold medal at a modern Olympics?

Dickinson was the Skip (or captain) of the US curling team, and they won the first gold medals in the Olympic games in Färht, Sweden, in 1880. During the medal ceremony, Dickinson was the first to receive a medal.

Dickinson wrote about the experience in two now-classic poems, "Winter under competition" and "With Brooms of Steel" (both below on the left). Dickinson's two line "Winter under competition" inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "Winter under cultivation" (below on the right). His other poem inspired Emily to write "Like Brooms of Steel" (also below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Winter under competition
Is now winnable with Bling

By Emily Dickinson:

Winter under cultivation
Is as arable as Spring.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

With Brooms of Steel
In Snow and Wind
They swept the Winter Ice –
The House was hooked
The Stone sent out
It’s landing was Precise –
Where stopped the Stone
The Score was tied
The Skip was – plotting Still
The Final in the Center stood
Gold medals were supplied.

By Emily Dickinson:

Like Brooms of Steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street --
The House was hooked
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of Heat --
Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample — plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug
Was all the one that played.

Below on the left: Many believe that this is a photograph of Emmett Lee Dickinson practicing on the roof of a life preserver hut he kept in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Dickinson said that practicing on the roof allowed him the quiet and undisturbed environment he needed for concentration.

Below on the right: President Rutherford B. Hayes with Emmett Lee Dickinson's broom used in curling in the 1880 Olympic games. Dickinson's presented the broom to President Hayes after he returned from the games. The broom is now on display in the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington DC.

Dickinson's relative Uhmilli Dikeanssöhn, Sweden's preeminent poet, witnessed Dickinson's gold-medal win at the Olympics, and she wrote about it in her poem "Swishen tīmen hâst kapützen här" (below on the left). The poem, which translates as "Sweep hours have perished here," inspired Emily Dickinson to write her poem "Sweet hours have perished here" (below on the right).

For more information on the Dickinson's relative Uhmilli Dikeanssöhn, click HERE.

By Uhmilli Dikeanssöhn:

Swishen tīmen hâst kapützen här,
Dist es ein livlig rink –
Inmit dis zone swiffers hâst
frølickt
Mit grânit boolders das klink.

Translation:

Sweep hours have perished here,
This is a lively rink –
Within its precincts brooms have
played
With granite slabs that clink.

By Emily Dickinson:

Sweet hours have perished here,
This is a timid room -
Within its precincts hopes have
played
Now shadows in the tomb.

And here's a bit of trivia for you: Did you know that Emily Dickinson and her sister Lavinia competed in pairs curling at the Massachusetts State Olympic Trials in 1868.

Shown at the right: A very rare photo of Lavinia and Emily Dickinson on the ice at a curling competition. Lavinia is on the far left, Emily is in the center, and an unidentified woman is on the right.

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Olympic Mettle

8/6/2016

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In June of 2014, the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard) hosted a special exhibit called "hyperBALLe" which detailed how the poetry of Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) influenced athletics and professional sports. To view the online exhibit, click HERE.

Did you know that Dickinson also influenced the Olympics?

In the early- to mid-1800s, Olympic athletes did not compete for gold, silver and bronze medals. Instead, those with Olympic mettle competed for cattle and livestock. Third and second place winners won cows and goats, and first place finishers won "as many as 100 animals."

In the late 1800s, Demetrius Vikelas, the head of the International Olympic Committee, grasped the impracticality of awarding cattle to Olympic winners, and he convinced the IOC to ward medals to the athletes instead.

Vikelas, who attended the Emmett Lee Dickinson School for Boys in Emoupoli on the island of Syros in Greece, cited the poem "My Gold -- I've earned thee" (below on the left) by Dickinson as his inspiration for the shift from livestock to ribbons with medals (although Dickinson envisioned more of a "belt of Gold" like those awarded by the modern day WWE). Dickinsons poem also inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem "My God -- He sees thee" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

My Gold – I’ve earned thee –
Shine thy best –
Upon my Belt of Gold
Till every Contest I have tried
And every Record hold –
The Winners’ Platform at my feet –
Beyond my Winning swim –
Silver – is just the Second’s right
In my long Race with him!

By Emily Dickinson:

My God – He sees thee –
Shine thy best –
Fling up thy Balls of Gold
Till every Cubit play with thee
And every Crescent hold –
Elate the Acre at his feet –
Upon his Atom swim –
Oh Sun – but just a Second's right
In thy long Race with him!

Below on the left: Sweden's most celebrated ice skater Ebba Lykke Johannanerikkson and the cow she won for her third place finish in the Women's Figure 8 at the 1816 Olympics in Haapajärvi, Finland.

Below on the right: A vintage postcard showing the commencement exercises at the Emmett Lee Dickinson School for Boys in Emoupoli.

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Halftime Report

Go for the Gold!

Variety Show

Heavy Medal

Clean Sweep

Olympic Mettle

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