FROM THE BOOK, FAST BREAK TO LINE BREAK: POETS ON THE ART OF BASKETBALL, Ed., Todd Davis, Michigan State University Press, excerpt from my essay, "My Two Obsessions: Basketball & Poetry" It makes sense to bring the two together. Basketball and poetry. It seemed and still seems clear to me that the Utes and their ball movement on that day I came to love the game, emulated metronomic movement; the passing of the ball, that day, became, for me, a dance, a kind of poetry. To this day, I have yet to see that almost-accidental perfect rhythm; the ball being “kept away in air,” and the different touches it finds as it is volleyed from player to player, mimetic of dance; watching the ball, then, becomes to a degree, hypnotic. Something else that feels dance-like, but less fluid, more pronounced, movement-specific and sharp in its execution, is the pump fake; particularly when Duncan executes it. Equally important, more important, perhaps, is the fact that when Duncan or any player pump fakes, he “buys time”; he uses “white space” to manipulate the response of the defender. Poets use white space like that, whether it be the use of enjambment and lineation, whether it be the use of isochronic space (referred to as isochrony) creating white space within a line, space for breathing – what a photographer or visual artist might call negative space. When an isochronic break or end-line-break is used, for me – it’s synonymous with a pump fake. Poets manipulate the reader’s eye and the poem’s pacing whenever they break or start a line, whenever they use stanzaic form over stichic, even when they use a period, a comma, a dash, a semicolon. Punctuation becomes one of the most effective tools to speed or slow the reader’s eye and the poem’s breath. We, as part of our art, do what composers do – decide where that breath should occur for highest impact. Whenever I see that pump fake, I think, line break. Stop. Restart. The executor of said movement, whether player or poet, then, controls the result. Another way poets control their result is to choose line lengths. Short Creeley-esque lines create freeze-frames – sometimes, a staccato rhythm. They slow the reader and the poem down. The longer a line moves, say a mid-length line, we lose some of that staccato, some of that freeze-frame effect; we gain, instead, a more fluid line, the line moves faster, more smoothly, the more space it is given to stretch. A much longer line spreads itself across much or most of a page – creates a mellifluousness that the mid-length line does not, and is then, antithetical in a way, to the short staccato freeze-framer. Is one better than the other? They all serve their purpose; it becomes the poet’s choice as to which line-length suits each poem-at-hand, line by line, stanza by stanza, until the entire poem has found its form. I feel the trajectory the ball is given during varied shots somehow feels the same as varied line lengths. For instance, a slam dunk feels staccato. The more quickly and deliberately and powerfully the ball is dunked, the more staccato it seems, but the drive to the basket and the windmill arm movement or however the player chooses to execute the throw-down, carries that staccato to a higher degree. The “slammier” the dunk gets, the more profoundly that moment is punctuated – the sassier it is. A mid-range shot is more fluid in its flight, less punctuated, smoother in its delivery, carries an airiness – a lighter quality. Finally, the popular shot made “from downtown,” from “behind the arc,” the Bruce Bowen corner three – the Finley three after three after three – or the Nowitski flight, the beautiful trajectory from the furthest space on the court, to the basket. Though Dirk’s threes feel much more Nutcracker Suite and floaty, and the arc on the ball is graceful, juxtapose that to the zoom-lens, lethal, faraway shot that feels like a bulls-eye when Ray Allen shoots and makes. Or the accidental half-court or three-quarter court desperation three that goes in, sent from a courageous Sheed. Variations on a theme; some seem “nailed” while some seem as if they are extended and leaping, the higher the arc, as if in a ballet, until the net is reached (see Nowitski). The way the poet chooses to execute an entire poem – say, a poem that does not carry stanzas but one firm extended body vs. the poem that is stanzaicly developed brings me to this. I have always felt the four quarters in basketball are a firm four-quatrain poem. Each quatrain stands by itself but gains resonance via the stitching to the following quatrain, until the poem (or game) is complete; reminiscent of the balance that comes from the four directions. Say, the poet prefers to create a “movement,” as in Beethoven’s symphonies, then the first movement is not limited to the quatrain, the four lines – could take up a whole page but might be marked I, II, III, IV or 1, 2, 3, 4 or as some poets have done, A, B, C, D, or merely using symbols to separate the movements ~ or *** or ~ ~ ~. Either way, whether a four-line formal or free-verse quatrain, whether a page-long movement, each carries what a quarter of a game carries – its own life, meaning, implications and surprises. But stitch the quarters together, and you have a whole story, a more expansive narrative. Of course, the overtimes are always surprises; any poem needing more space and flow can then create the additional quatrain or movement. And a book is an even longer stitching, not of quatrains or tercets, but of whole poems that speak to each other, a final collection, an entire season. Now, the surprise at the end of a poem should almost always feel as intense, as unexpected, as a last-second, game-changing shot. Of course, we have the more fluid and expected endings, which also work, the 20-point game lead with 1.7 left. We know the team leading will win, though we don’t know by how much. Whether the ending is an entire surprise or more anticipated – it should always be effective. Remember Larry Bird, ‘87 Celtics? Eastern Conference Finals. The series was tied 3-3. It seemed the Pistons were going to take the game and the series. The game was winding down; the Pistons were feeling confident. Isaiah inbounds a pass, Bird steals and passes to Dennis Johnson for the winning lay-up. The Celts were going to the finals! Surprise endings tear the rafters down – what a surprise ending does in a poem. It creates a shaft of wind up the back of the neck, as opposed to a peaceful fadeout, which also has its place. Closer to home for me – Derek Fisher, Game Five, 2003-2004 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, the series was tied 2-2. Last minute heroics by Kobe took the Lakers up by a point, then Duncan makes a desperation fade away 18-footer with Shaq on the double-team defense. Duncan’s shot goes in! Spurs 73. Lakers 72. 0.4 on the clock; none other than Fisher, shoots and makes, a tenth of a contested second left. Lakers ended up taking Game Five and the series, 4-2, as the Spurs were ousted from the post-season, losing the opportunity for a back-to-back. Surprise endings, clearly, have impact beyond measure and beyond forgetting. Finally, the escape or the entry? Oftentimes, I enter both poetry and basketball for either: amplified entry into reality (post-season), or an escape from reality (regular season). There is nothing more healing and hypnotic to me than watching the back and forth of a game on hardwood after a hard day’s work, losing the day in the muscular overtures of Michael Finley, the grace, the leap, the movement; keeping our eyes on the ball can be hypnotic, addictive – one of many reason, I cannot lose this game. THE FULL ESSAY MAKES MENTION OF SDSU AZTECS, THE UTAH UTES, MORE SPURS, AND DON HASKINS, THE KING, AND GLORY ROAD! . . . BUT OF COURSE THE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS FROM VARIOUS POETS, PUBLISHED IN AN ANTHOLOGY ENTITLED Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball Editor: Todd Davis, who teaches at Penn State University and whose recent collection of poems "The Least of These" just came out! More about the book of poems at msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3907 NOTE TO PALMER HALL: Thanks for having read the very original draft
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 01:59:08 +0000
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