RefBan

Referral Banners

Friday, August 3, 2012

Arts: The Dunk, Through and Through

Slate Magazine
Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Books
The Dunk, Through and Through
A poet who knows nothing about sports writes a poem about the slam dunk.
By Patricia Lockwood
Posted Friday, Aug 03, 2012, at 03:00 PM ET

For Shaquille

Where does a poem come from? I write something bad on a piece of paper, I crumple the piece of paper up, I slam-dunk the paper into the trash. I sink deeper into myself and think.

The dunk is conceptually exciting. The word itself like the sound of the thing! I'm surprised all poems aren't called "The Dunk"— then everyone would have to be impressed by them. If a poem is called "The Dunk" then very certainly it is one.

Like you're reading a poem at Barack Obama's inauguration and as soon as you read the words "The Dunk" you see Barack Obama pumping his fist like Yesss, she did it! At the end of the poem he shouts, "SWEET DUNK."

Let's see, what do we know about the dunk. First no one could dunk, and then they all could. There occurred a kind of leap. The dunk evolved, and then stood upright, with too big a brain at the top of it, the ball.

I am playing a game, the ball is in my hands, I am looking to see who's open.

SHAQ has an excellent Twitter account that mostly consists of him telling various people that he is going to have sex with their mothers. Also one day he is gonna fight Jose Canseco, which, what form would that even take? SHAQ dunks the basketball of Jose, Jose bunts the baseball of SHAQ?

I don't even know what bunting ...

To continue reading, click here.

Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Also In Slate

July Jobs Report: Steady as She Goes With 163,000 New Jobs


In Defense of Dressage


Amazing Lost Footage From The Karate Kid

Advertisement


Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information


Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com.

Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy
The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036


No comments: