Project Builder 2

The piece I wrote about for my first project builder was a serious poem about the author’s love and admiration for the beautiful game of soccer. I feel like he didn’t really have a specific intended audience, but the people who would appreciate and relate to his work would be people with the same passion for the game as him. For instance, a student athlete who plays soccer would read this poem and completely understand what the author is saying and aiming to get across to the readers. I wouldn’t even settle on just soccer players however. The way the poem is structured it would make sense to any athlete, because the author doesn’t mention that he is speaking of soccer at all. He references to the sport of which he is speaking of as “the beautiful game”, but in a way that could be interpreted as the sport of football to a football player or as baseball to a baseball player. I feel that was a technique that the author used to get across not only to soccer players, but also to an athlete of any other sport. The repeated use of the line “the beautiful game” also serves a second purpose I believe. Throughout the poem the author writes lines comparing the sport to a war or battle. He makes sure that readers realize that he is talking about a sport, but he never calls it just a game. The only time he refers it to just a game instead of a fight is when he repeats the line “the beautiful game”. That line serves as a reminder to the readers who more than likely are athletes themselves that it is perfectly fine for an athlete to have a winning mentality and a desire to be the best, but at the end of the day it is just a game that will be over in 90 minutes. I have been a competitive athlete all my life. I have played in teams for my schools, but also in soccer leagues outside the school, so I can relate to his poem and the passion he feels for the game. A person who does not practice a sport competitively probably wouldn’t understand why he refers to the sport as a battle or a war. A person of a competitive nature will always see any task he is doing as a war in which he or she needs to come out victorious. It is not about destroying an opponent; it is about making all your hard work and practice that led up to the game worth it. The author also referred to that point in the poem. He writes, “Long before I came here, I have prepared for this day”.  The game is referred to as a battle because every player has that mentality that losing in not an option due to the long hours of practice that were put into winning the game beforehand. Any athlete will relate to that as well. No soccer player wants to lose a 90 minute game that has taken long numerous days of rigorous training getting ready for. That is why it is referred to as a battle, because both sides have gone through the same sacrifices in order to come out victorious. The poem is meant to serve as an ode from an athlete to their respective sport. It is as if the poem is what the athlete is thinking of right before the beginning of a game that they have been working hard to win for a long time. The serious and determined tone that the author conveys in his piece serves the purpose of inspiration. Inspiration for both the sport and the athlete. Every player who is participating in the sport has the same love for the game, but the poem is directed at inspiring each player personally to win their respective game.