Pétanque
John Claiborne Isbell
We have our metal balls in hand
and come to play. But first, we stand
around and chat a little while,
as one does. This may make you smile,
but it’s integral to the game.
We all are retirees. The blame,
you will observe, may fall on that.
Perhaps. And this is Spain. And at
the moment, in the pleasant shade
of the tall trees, we’ve got it made.
The little ball goes on its course;
the others follow suit. Of course,
some balls lie close and some lie far.
It doesn’t matter where they are,
so much, since we do play for fun.
But I will say that we have one
or two good players in our crowd,
who play with skill and are not loud
about the grace they bring to bear
on sending others everywhere
while their ball lingers by the small
red target ball on which we all
affix our eyes and hopes to win.
You’ve got the game? Then let’s begin!
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Fliss: Well met, John, and welcome back! And let’s begin indeed. We’re pleased to feature your poetry again. This is set in Girona, I believe, where you and your delightful wife, Rita, are living at the moment.
John: Greetings, Fliss, and well met to you and Word-Bird! This is indeed Girona, and written this morning, on July 20th. Girona is in Catalonia between Barcelona and the French border at the Pyrenees. It’s a lovely town full of cyclists!
F: Sounds great, John. Now, it probably won’t surprise you that W.-B. and I did a little research on pétanque before turning up today. We learned quite a lot, and we were particularly taken with how the game got its name. It’s worth quoting the original source, Historia, in full, we think. W.-B.?
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W.-B.: [reading] “A former jeu provençal player named Jules Lenoir was afflicted by rheumatism so severe that he could no longer run before throwing a boule. He could barely stand. A good friend named Ernest Pitiot was a local café owner. To accommodate his friend Lenoir, Pitiot developed a variant form of the game in which the length of the pitch or field was reduced by roughly half, and a player, instead of running to throw a boule, stood, stationary, in a circle. They called the game pieds tanqués, ’feet planted’ (on the ground), a name that eventually evolved into the game’s current name, pétanque.”
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F: Thanks, W.-B.! Rather heartwarming, we felt.
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J: I agree! And thank you, Word-Bird. I’ll add that the game is similar to bowls, which Walter Raleigh played as the Spanish Armada approached – but our Spanish friends all think of it as a French game. You can play it on the banks of the Seine in Paris, which we plan to do next month! It is maybe less popular than it used to be in France – I picture people playing it in the 1930s – and now it’s played by elderly people and in the South. Though in Paris, you see young players.
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F: John, I remember seeing people playing in car parks while on holiday in the Loire Valley in the early 1990s or so. Of course due to illness I haven’t been to France for many years, but it’s nice to think of the game going on there. We hope you enjoy your games on the banks of the Seine! I remember thinking it looked quite interesting.
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J: It is! So basically, you have a small ball, the cochonnet or piggy – in Spanish, the bolinche – which you throw about ten to fifteen meters away. You then have about two bigger metal balls each to roll or toss, with points for ending nearest the cochonnet. You can hit other balls and send them flying! Or you can hit the cochonnet and move it. You play on a flat sandy surface, unlike bowls which is played on grass.
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F: Yes, that makes sense! I like the culture of the game as described in your poem, the chats before you begin, the playing for fun, the modesty of your good players. And the setting, with the tall trees providing some shade. Well, let’s turn to metrical matters now. This is a brisk tet, we feel.
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J: Indeed! The poem is in mostly iambic tetrameter rhyming couplets, which are fun to write. It’s a very light form, which seems apt for a game of pétanque or boules.
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F: Yes, light is right, we agree. Well, W.-B. seems keen for a game now, so we’d better get started!
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W.-B.: Woo-hoo! Pétanque! [twirls]
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J: Let’s begin!​
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John Claiborne Isbell is a writer and now-retired professor currently living in Paris with his wife Margarita, following their stay in Girona earlier this summer. Their son Aibek lives in California with his wife Stephanie. John’s first book of poetry was Allegro (2018); he also publishes literary criticism, for instance An Outline of Romanticism in the West (2022) and Women Writers in the Romantic Age (April 2025), both available free online. John spent 35 years playing Ultimate Frisbee and finds it difficult not to dive for catches any more!
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