Baseball cards and poetry may seem like an unusual combination, but to Justin Hamm, they make perfect sense

Hamm, Missouri’s Poet Laureate, was recently awarded a $50,000 fellowship prize from the Academy of American Poets. The money will help support the creation of a new high school curriculum that combines two of his greatest passions — baseball and poetry. 

“It’s built around the idea of fantasy baseball,” Hamm said. 

Students will draft poets using baseball cards that Hamm created. They will learn about the poets, complete tasks based on sample poetry, which will be provided as part of the curriculum, and accrue points. Eventually, students will be asked to choose their starting poet, bench poet and who they would “cut” from the team.

“It’s a good way for them to gamify learning about poetry,” Hamm said. “It’s just a new way to look at it.”

What makes the curriculum unique is that the poets Hamm selected are all living Missouri poets.

“I think the big thing about that is it means kids will be seeing figures who write about, potentially, the experiences that they might see themselves,” he said. 

Hamm’s goal is to offer quality poet cards that look just like vintage baseball collectibles. He has set aside $15,000 of the grant money to make the cards, and he will offer them to Missouri high school teachers for free. 

His budget allows him to make 300 sets. The curriculum itself, which Hamm is working on with a writer, will also be available to download for free.

“That’s one of the beautiful things about it,” Hamm said. “It will be a ready-made curriculum that’s just given away along with the materials.”

Baseball has always been a big part of Hamm’s life. He attended McMurray College to play baseball, but an injury stopped his baseball career in its tracks. 

“After I hurt my arm, I ended up studying English instead,” Hamm said.

Still, he continued to stay involved in baseball. For many years, Hamm coached baseball at North Callaway High School, and he is a member of multiple online groups for classic baseball cards. Hamm said his interests led to poets coming up on his social media feed frequently and eventually, he started getting ads for a company that makes custom, vintage-looking cards.

“I just looked at it 15, 20 times, and then it finally clicked,” he said. “Initially, I was only going to make them for myself to collect.”

Hamm said he showed the cards to a few other people who really liked the idea and it has had a warm reception so far. His hope is that the curriculum gets widely adopted in Missouri.

“As Missouri’s poet laureate, that’s my number one responsibility and that’s what I want,” he said.