17 pages • 34 minutes read
Yusef KomunyakaaSlam, Dunk, & Hook
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa (1988)
Probably the best-known of Komunyakaa’s Vietnam poems, “Facing It” dramatizes a Black war veteran’s hallucinatory experience in front of the Vietnam memorial, as present melts into past and human flesh melts into stone.
"Old Men Playing Basketball" by B.H. Fairchild (1998)
The players in Fairchild’s basketball poem love the sport as much as the boys in “Slam, Dunk, & Hook,” but their bodies are no longer capable of performing. There seems to be little in common between the players in the two poems, until Fairchild’s final stanza when the men turn into winged boys.
"Whilst Leila Sleeps" by Jackie Kay (1989)
This poem by the Black Scottish poet Jackie Kay has no connection to sport. Yet similar themes of power and vulnerability, innocence and knowledge emerge, while the use of enjambement and short sentences creates a comparable level of heightened tension.
Further Literary Resources
"About Yusef Komunyakaa: A Profile" by Susan Conley in Ploughshares (1997)
This is a detailed profile based on an interview with Komunyakaa, in which he reflects on his childhood, the influence of his early reading of the Bible, and his important first encounters with James Baldwin.
"Yusef Komunyakaa by Paul Muldoon" by Paul Muldoon in BOMB Magazine (1998)
Award-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon conducts an interview with Komunyakaa which is more of a free-form conversation, ranging across topics from their shared influence from T.S. Eliot to the connection between poetry and manual labor.
"First Loves" by Major Jackson in Poetry Foundation (2007)
In this personal piece, poet Major Jackson reveals how finding a poem about basketball helped him fall in love with poetry. In Jackson’s case the poem was not “Slam, Dunk, & Hook” but Garret Hongo’s “The Cadence of Silk,” which is printed in full within the article.
Listen to Poem
Listen to the poet read his own work in this brief video recorded in 1991.
Related Titles
By Yusef Komunyakaa
