The content of post-game interviews and sports chatter is so often meaningless, if not insufferable, and yet there are athletes like Metta World Peace who transcend lame clichéeacute;s and rote patter, who use language in surprising ways, who can be funny and shocking and insightful and alarmingly sincere -- pure poetry. Muhammad Ali offered dazzling displays of lexical wizardry, and Allen Iverson's infamous "practice" rant shifted the post-game press conference from the banal to the absurd.

This book is a celebration of these rare and exceptional moments. Various poetic forms and line-breaks highlight -- or, in the words of Deion Sanders, "deem to set a candor on" -- the sophisticated, sublime, and surprising performances of language made by professional athletes.