To An Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Slam, Dunk, & Hook

byYusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa

Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's

Insignia on our sneakers,

We outmaneuvered to footwork

Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot

Swish of strings like silk

Ten feet out. In the roundhouse

Labyrinth our bodies

Created, we could almost

Last forever, poised in midair

Like storybook sea monsters.

A high note hung there

A long second. Off

The rim. We'd corkscrew

Up & dunk balls that exploded

The skullcap of hope & good

Intention. Lanky, all hands

& feet...sprung rhythm.

We were metaphysical when girls

Cheered on the sidelines.

Tangled up in a falling,

Muscles were a bright motor

Double-flashing to the metal hoop

Nailed to our oak.

When Sonny Boy's mama died

He played nonstop all day, so hard

Our backboard splintered.

Glistening with sweat,

We rolled the ball off

Our fingertips. Trouble

Was there slapping a blackjack

Against an open palm.

Dribble, drive to the inside,

& glide like a sparrow hawk.

Lay ups. Fast breaks.

we had moves we didn't know

We had. Our bodies spun

On swivels of bone & faith,

Through a lyric slipknot

Of joy, & we knew we were

Beautiful & dangerous.

Fast Break

In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984

by Edward Hirsch

A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn't drop,

and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump

perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession

and spinning around to throw a strike
to the outlet who is already shoveling

an underhand pass toward the other guard
scissoring past a flat-footed defender

who looks stunned and nailed to the floor
in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

of a high, gliding dribble and a man
letting the play develop in front of him

in slow motion, almost exactly
like a coach's drawing on the blackboard,

both forwards racing down the court
the way that forwards should, fanning out

and filling the lanes in tandem, moving
together as brothers passing the ball

between them without a dribble, without
a single bounce hitting the hardwood

until the guard finally lunges out
and commits to the wrong man

while the power-forward explodes past them
in a fury, taking the ball into the air

by himself now and laying it gently
against the glass for a lay-up,

but losing his balance in the process,
inexplicably falling, hitting the floor

with a wild, headlong motion
for the game he loved like a country

and swiveling back to see an orange blur
floating perfectly through the net.

Ex-Basketball Player

by John Updike

John Updike

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,

Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off

Before it has a chance to go two blocks,

At ColonelMcComskyPlaza. Berth’s Garage

Is on the corner facing west, and there,

Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—

Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,

Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.

One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes

An E and O. And one is squat, without

A head at all—more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.

He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46

He bucketed three hundred ninety points,

A county record still. The ball loved Flick.

I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty

In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,

Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,

As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,

But most of us remember anyway.

His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.

It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.

Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,

Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.

Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods

Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers

Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

Read and reread Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young,” and use it to answer the following questions on style. Cite the text of poem where appropriate in your responses. For each response, write at least one sentence explaining the effect on meaning or tone of the literary device.

Diction

• Which of the important words (verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs) in the poem or passageare general and abstract, and which are specific and concrete?

• Are the important words formal, informal, colloquial, or slang?

• Are there words with strong connotations, words we might refer to as “loaded”?

Figurative Language

• Are some words not literal but figurative, creating figures of speech such as metaphors, similes,and personification?

Imagery

• Are the images—the parts of the passage we experience with our five senses—concrete, and/or dothey depend on figurative language to come alive?

Syntax

• What is the order of the words in the sentences? Are they in the usual subject-verb-objectorder, or are they inverted?

• Which is more prevalent in the passage, nouns or verbs?

• What are the sentences like? Do their meanings build periodically or cumulatively?

• How do the sentences connect their words, phrases, and clauses?

• How is the poem or passage organized? Is it chronological? Does it move from concrete toabstract or vice versa? Or does it follow some other pattern?

Reminder: For each response, write at least one sentence explaining the effect on meaning or tone of the literary device.

Rhyme

• Does the poem have a regular rhyme scheme? If so, what is it?

• What other types of rhymes does the poem include, such as internal rhymes, sight rhymes, ornear rhymes?

• How does the rhyme scheme affect the poem’s sound, tone, or meaning?

Meter

• Does the poem have a regular meter? If so, what is it?

• Read the poem aloud. How does the meter affect the tone of the poem? For instance, does themeter make the poem seem formal, informal, singsongy, celebratory, somber?

Form

• Does the poem follow a traditional form? If so, which?

• If the poem follows a traditional form but has untraditional content, what might be the poet’spurpose in subverting the traditional form?

• If the poem does not follow a traditional form, what sort of logic structures the poem? Forinstance, why are the stanzas broken as they are? What is the relationship among the stanzas?

Sound

• How does the poem use rhyme, meter, form, and poetic syntax to create sound?

• How does the poem use repetition, such as alliteration and assonance, to create sound?

• How do the sounds created in the poem connect to the meaning of the poem?

Read, reread, reread, and annotate Yusek Komunyakaa's "Slam, Dunk, & Hook" and Edward Hirsch’s “Fast Break.” Complete this handout.

  • Summarize each work in one sentence below.
  • Complete the graphic organizer below.

Title / “Slam, Dunk & Hook” / “Fast Break”
Situation
Speaker (POV)
Imagery
Syntax
Allusion
Figurative Language
Theme(s)
Rhythm