(Ed note: We're pleased to bring you the Los Angeles Review of Books coverage of the 2012 Olympics. To read the complete series, click here.)
Handshake
As someone who once wrestled, what I appreciate is the narrative of the match. The ritual. Wrestlers receive points for putting opponents into predicaments. Wrestlers attempt different moves and holds on their opponents — the leg sweep, the hip throw, the headlock. There are different styles of wrestling — freestyle, which is the type of wrestling I learned, and Greco-Roman, which forbids the use of foot or leg sweeps, as well as grappling below the waist. Most people know about the pin, which is also known as the fall. Many people know about takedowns, which means bringing an opponent from a standing position to a position of vulnerability on the mat. Points are scored for aggression but also for ambition — moves or holds that may put the wrestler at risk of getting pinned. The circumstance of the encounter between wrestlers happens on a soft, even plane. There are zones on that plane. The passivity zone. The central wrestling zone. Out of bounds. Combat occurs within these zones as the wrestlers move in and out of passivity, into the core. The wrestlers watch the referee. They watch the scoreboard for the time. They watch each other. The event consists of two three-minute periods. Whoever wins the most periods wins the match. If the match is tied by the end of the second period, the match goes into overtime or "the clinch." There are three opponents in wrestling — the self, the other wrestler, and time.
***
Another poet told me that poems were like tattoos. That you needed to "go big or forget about it." I will never get a tattoo on the inside of my ankle. I've seen guys at the gym with an inked barbed wire tattoo around their biceps and no other ink. A half-commitment. If I were to get a tattoo, I would get a massive tattoo on my back. On my high-school wrestling team, there were guys who had no necks and bodies that looked like tree trunks heavy with graffiti. They pulled crackling old wrestling shoes from their lockers. Their shoes creaked when they shoved them over their ankles. They all had scars. Muscle aches. Beside them, I was unadorned.
First Period
I was in constant discomfort in high school because I was the worst wrestler on the wrestling team. In my yearbook, someone has written "you" on my picture with the team. Honestly, though, I'm not sure that's me. We were told to put on our "mean faces" and to place our forearms against our knees, pressing them so the pressure of the knee would push the meat of our arms outward, making us look thicker. I think I'm smirking a little in the picture, maybe grimacing.
***
I pace when I'm in the midst of writing a poem. I step away from my desk. I distract myself. I move. I have a morning full of ritual. So much of my time before actually writing is committing myself to the ritual of sitting down. William Stafford wrote every morning just after waking up. I can't do that. I have to check off items in boxes. The morning itself needs to find a fixed form. In wrestling, it's important to be unpredictable. During the handshake ritual, I'd jog in place before shaking my opponent's hand. I'd roll my head along my shoulders. I'd crack my knuckles. I'd loom. Here, though, the poems always manage to dictate their own pace. There is never enough time for them so we must devise a structure for them. A way to size them up. A way to pull them down and hold them tight.
***
My wrestling singlet was standard issue. It was made from a nylon/lycra blend, so it stretched but it didn't breathe. The singlet is a piece of equipment with purpose. It not only needs to cover up the private areas of the wrestler, but it needs to cling tightly to the wrestler's body in order to prevent an opponent from using the singlet for the purposes of grappling or taking down the wearer.
I wrestled in the 130lb/60kg weight class. My build was problematic for my singlet — for the sport. I had short legs, a long torso, and very little muscle, so my singlet stretched tightly around my inner thigh and crotch region. The straps dug tightly into my shoulder. It felt like someone had taken the soft leather pocket of a slingshot — the part where you place the projectile — pulled the elastic straight down as if preparing to shoot a pebble at a flock of high-flying game birds, and hesitated with the elastic at full stretch. All of the team's singlets were hand-me-downs, and in every singlet, there was the ghost of someone else's body. I'm sure Olympians have tailored singlets, and I imagine the fit on theirs won't be an impediment to their wrestling abilities as my singlet was to mine.
***
The sport of wrestling is a ready metaphor for struggle. If you are dealing with personal turmoil, you can be described as "wrestling with something." You can be "grappling with issues." In T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," after a lyrical deluge, Eliot is left with "the intolerable wrestle/With words and meanings . . . ", wondering whether his poetic efforts matter.
***
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Rulon Gardner, an American who grew up on a Wyoming dairy farm, defeated Alexander Karelin. Karelin was the gold medal winner in Greco-Roman wrestling for the 1988, 1992, and 1996 Olympic Games. He hadn't lost a match in 13 years. They were a study in contrasts. Gardner was doughy. Baby-faced, but recognizably a man shaped by work on a farm. Karelin was chiseled. His muscular abdomen looked engineered. He had nicknames: "The Russian Bear," "Alexander the Great," "The Experiment." He had a signature move called the "Karelin Lift" where he would hoist an opponent from the mat, straight up into the air, and slam them back down to the mat. It was an uncommon move for the 130kg weight class because it required immense strength. Karelin had defeated Gardner in previous bouts, but what won the day for Gardner was his guile. He had studied "The Russian Bear's" technique and knew that elusiveness would be the key to winning the bout. And so Gardner moved. Twisted. Prevented the Russian from grabbing his singlet and executing his signature move. Because Karelin lost his grip on Rulon, he was penalized a point and thus lost the gold medal.
***
Imagine how long six minutes must have seemed to Gardner. Watching the clock as six minutes move achingly slow. The match actively stopping time. The agony of the body and of the mind's awareness of the body has ways of stretching minutes into hours. The long, fibrous muscles stretched taut, pulled by the arms of another.
***
We'd chug whole packets of sugar to gain a short speed burst prior to our matches for our "Angry Six Minutes" as our coaches called it. We'd skip meals. We'd run wind sprints or vigorously jog in place. Once, I wrapped Saran wrap around my waist, wore a thick fleece sweat suit, and ran up and down bleacher steps for 15 minutes prior to a wrestling match in order to lose a pound. Our coach gave us chewing gum and had us spit into cups to cut down our water weight. Drinking water was forbidden. Thirst was weakness but a gulp of water also meant the difference between one weight class and another. While I didn't see it or hear it firsthand, some of my teammates swore some of our other teammates were binging and purging themselves. We spent much of the wrestling season angry and faint.
***
When I look up from the computer screen or the notepad, the world changes. When I perform the same task of drafting a long poem, the day carries with it particular expectations, but the day is never the same. Sometimes, there's laundry. There are always dishes to be cleaned, but sometimes pans. My sons need help getting dressed. The world's chores spill from the window. So then you look back at what you've done on the screen or notepad and wonder whether it was truly enough. But the day moves forward and before I know it, the trajectory of the poem I've been chasing has veered off in another direction. The poem slides past my grasp.
Second Period
The condition of a wrestler in relation to his or her opponent is governed by the condition of his or her opponent. To be a wrestler is to inflict intentional discomfort on the self for the glory of mastering one's body in relation to space. To wrestle means to encroach upon someone else's physical space, hold your position within that space for a set duration, and prevent the opponent from interfering with you as you control his or her space.
***
Gardner shifts from side to side, moving Karelin's arms out of the way. His constant counters frustrate the Russian. Karelin's arms shoot forward. Gardner's body backs away sharply. They twist their limbs at the center of the mat. Their arms lock for an instant before Gardner shifts away. They clutch and move away in a lumbering dance. The referee issues a "Passivity" warning on Gardner. And indeed, it does look like Gardner is stalling. Looking for a way in without putting himself at risk.
***
In wrestling, you are judged for your activity. How aggressively are you seeking out your opponent? How much time are you spending in a submissive position? Are you trying to get out of that position? In poetry, simply scribbling does not move the score. Eyeing the subject, circling about it, and getting ready to surge forward will not put the poem in your grasp. Busyness doesn't move the judge. Simply scribbling, biding your time, reading, is seen as idleness to the non-writer. To the writer, it is a flurry of activity. The trouble, then, is that writing a long poem suffuses idleness and activity over a sustained period. Nothing happens. Everything happens.
***
One of our wrestling exercises was called "bridging." In order to "bridge," you had to have your back on the mat. You then had to raise your body up off of the mat using your legs and your neck muscles. Your belly had to rise towards the ceiling and your arms had to be crossed over your ribs. This exercise strengthened your neck muscles but was also the key way for wrestlers to wriggle out of getting pinned. Holding this position was painful. Our coaches demanded that we maintain bridge positions for two-minute intervals. The wrestler's body, when placed on a plane above the mat during this exercise, is in a position to bear its own weight and the weight of another person with only the head and the legs.
***
Karelin is tired. He breathes heavily. He cannot move Gardner. He cannot apply his "Karelin Lift" because the strength required to apply the throw has long ebbed. Gardner is at the center of the mat with his arms stretched outward. He turns himself into stone.
The Clinch
Wrestling, at its core, is about the control, mastery, and manipulation of bodies. A wrestler who is fully dedicated to his or her sport will subject him or herself to bodily indignities in order to make or maintain a particular wrestling weight. To fashion yourself into an Olympian means to make an agreement with pain. The Olympic risk means an understanding of Olympic pain and a willingness to encounter that pain. Furthermore, Olympic wrestling is a public spectacle. The athlete is a public artist who practices his art before our eyes, blurring the boundary between his body and the audience around him. When we respond to an event that moves us, we say we are having a "visceral experience." The phenomenon of an individual's mind comprehending the emotional event of victory or defeat creates a condition within the body for both the athlete and the observer.
***
Gardner learned something in his prior meeting with Karelin. The way to beat Karelin is to score on Karelin and then let the clock run. For much of the match, Gardner is flat on his stomach, pancaked out so the space required to turn him over is greater. He feels Karelin at his side, probing for a hold. Some leverage. A way to lift Gardner's body above the mat and back down again for the takedown, but Gardner has made his body so large. So difficult to turn.
***
The logic of every wrestling match is determined through contact and instinct. Every opponent generates the law that determines his or her defeat. Such knowledge is acquired through study. Through time and experience. To be a poet is to be someone who attempts to reconcile qualities of the world with the individual. In A.R. Ammons' essay, "A Poem Is a Walk," he writes:
Knowledge of poetry, which is gained, as in science or other areas, by induction and deduction, is likely to remain provisional by falling short in one of two ways: either it is too specific, too narrow and definite, to be widely applicable — that is the principles suggested by a single poem are not likely to apply in the same number or kind in another poem.
The way an opponent moves governs the way you must move in a match; so too, the movement of a poem. The long poem is governed by what is known, but also by what is experienced as it is happening or has happened. The direction or aim of the poem must be malleable.
***
After his defeat at the hands of Gardner, Karelin retired from wrestling and became a politician. The man dubbed "The Meanest Man in the World," Karelin has been known to read and write poetry. He is considered a hero in Russia. When Putin's Unity Party needed a political boost, it selected Karelin to run for a seat on the legislature. Karelin has clearly left the wrestling mat for other pursuits, but Rulon Gardner wants to return. Gardner appeared on NBC's reality TV show, The Biggest Loser. For the 2000 Olympic competition, Gardner wrestled at the 130kg weight, roughly 280 pounds, but during the airing of the show, he weighed 474 pounds. His weight loss during the show was dramatic. He lost 140 pounds before he quit. He still wants to wrestle. He wishes he were in London.
***
In our post-wrestling lives, the tattoos have stretched into indeterminate ink patches. Some of us have abandoned our athletic ambitions. At night, staying up late trying to retrace the path of a long poem, I imagine that some of us are remembering how our arms felt. Our legs. There we are in front of the mirror, brushing our teeth or washing our faces, and yet the shadows from the bulb are cast in new angles. We are miraculously and simultaneously distinguishable and indistinguishable to ourselves.
