Football By Louis Jenkins Summary

Poetry Analysis
In the poem Football by Louis Jenkins, the author makes a new affiliation between football and life. Jenkins juxtaposes the idea of playing the decision maker on the football field as a quarterback with daily decisions of life. The poem is about a quarterback who has taken the snap from center and now has to make a decision on what his next move is. As he is pondering through his ideas, he closely begins to analyze his how his signal calling on the field relates to his judgments that he makes off the field. After contemplating with his thoughts, he then concludes that the receiver downfield is not open and doesn't throw him the ball. An existential critic would announce that the translation of this poem is a journey of an individual's thought process as he faces
The first part of line one says that the speaker took the snap form center, well in the game of football the snap form center is usually or mostly taken by the quarterback. Also he goes on to say that he has protection. Again, in football the only person that receives protection is the quarterback. Furthermore the speaker goes on to say that he has a receiver open downfield. The quarterback is the one that always throws to the receiver in football. These three examples lead to the reader's conclusion that the speaker is a quarterback. Aside from the transparent identification of the speaker, the author has no special tricks and uses a few schemes of construction. There is no rhyme scheme. However, the insertions of ellipsis in the first two lines are quite impactful. For example, towards the end of the first line, the speaker states "fake to the right, fade back…" and then transitions to the second line where the beginning declares "I've got protection." The use of the ellipsis after "back" help speed up the thoughts that rushed through the quarterback's mind, thus creating a feeling of pressure and