Poetry: “First Notes on Tennis” by Noreen Ocampo
Noreen Ocampo’s “First Notes on Tennis,” is intimidating, plain and simple. The structure of the poem is a little scary. But when you look closer, the poem, which mimics a tennis court, is full of lyrical and inventive moments of beauty and surprise, each quick line—limited by the form itself—coming together to create this picture of the tennis court and those who pass through it, people of all ages. We find different times of day, people of different ages and professions, different skill levels—the list goes on. Spending some time with Ocampo’s poem is worth it. No matter how many times you read it through, there’s always a surprise hidden in one of these little boxes, always something new and exciting to discover, and this is the joy of poetry, reminding all of us to slow down and look a little closer, take a minute, explore, connect, collect, share.
Noreen Ocampo
Noreen Ocampo is a Filipino-American writer and poet from metro Atlanta. Her collection Not Flowers won the 2021 Variant Lit Microchap Contest, and she is also the author of There Are No Filipinos in Mississippi, forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. Her work can be found in AAWW’s The Margins, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Baltimore Review, among others. She holds a BA in English from Emory University and studies poetry in the MFA program at The University of Mississippi, where she is working to document and elevate stories of Filipino-Americans in the Deep South.
