{"id":203,"date":"2025-04-16T23:59:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T23:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/?page_id=203"},"modified":"2025-04-24T00:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T00:11:00","slug":"broken-sonnet-about-walter-payton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/poetry\/broken-sonnet-about-walter-payton\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Sonnet about Walter Payton"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dyson Smith<\/span><\/p>\n

I love Walter Payton dearly. This has been the case ever since I listened to the 1985 Super Bowl Shuffle<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He swung his hips and sang unapologetically or virtuously. At the thirty second mark he raps:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well they call me Sweetness and I like to dance! Running the ball is like making romance<\/i>!\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The coolest thing is that Walter did love to dance. He was on Soul Train<\/i> and snaked\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to Kool & The Gang <\/i>before he ever Superbowl shuffled. When Walter wasn\u2019t high stepping into endzones, running defenders over, he spent most of his time studying at Joffrey Ballet. I wondered if the only way Walter could offset the violence of football was to practice gentleness in his away life. A careful negotiation, His nickname was sweetness.\u00a0 I imagined him sweet. Walter, when I moved across the country, away from the bigness of Chicago, I couldn\u2019t stop watching your highlights. Days into Sacramento I was prompted to reveal my Windy City dysfunctions. The woman to the left of me asked if I had known anyone to get killed in the city, and upon answering Yes<\/i> she said You must be tough<\/i>. Walter, that same night I went back into my room and stretched out a leg hold as far as my body allowed. Walter, would you believe me if I told you that I pirouetted in secrecy? Just as you did. But still, Walter, in most conversations I still fear I\u2019m perceived as tough, rough, abrasive, to the touch<\/i>. How must I dance?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dyson Smith I love Walter Payton dearly. This has been the case ever since I listened to the 1985 Super Bowl Shuffle.\u00a0 He swung his hips and sang unapologetically or virtuously. At the thirty second mark he raps:\u00a0 Well they call me Sweetness and I like to dance! Running the ball is like making… Continue Reading Broken Sonnet about Walter Payton<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_theme","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-203","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions\/258"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}