Cutoff, The

By Jay Rogoff

1994 Washington Prize winner

In a sequence of lyrical monologues, a minor league outfielder turns 30, becomes a father, and ponders his future. Using an experimental stanza that negotiates between traditional form and free verse, this first of Jay Rogoff’s seven collections concerns much more than baseball. Love, family, aging, art, and literature all inform what poet Andrew Hudgins calls the book’s “virtuoso brilliance.” Cover art by renowned baseball painter Lance Richbourg.