Dennis O’Toole is a writer and improv performer from Chicago. His work has appeared on NPR, in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. His blog is at dennisotoole.com.
Ted Williams’s last game for the Red Sox was almost a flop. But it provided fuel for one of the best sports essays of all time—until the author started tinkering. On baseball, The Simpsons, and the creative impulse to never stop.
Poetry can provide solace. It can also remind people to quit freaking out. Poems selected for Congress, nervous shoppers, Maureen Dowd, and the President of the United States.