Slam, Dunk, & Hook

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem, “Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, he talks about basketball as though it is an art form. He moves through multiple aspects of the game, giving objects such as the basketball net or the athletes' muscles artistic qualities. For example, Komunyakaa describes the net swish as silk strings (line 5), which might normally be found in beautiful clothing or tapestries. Likewise, the athetes’ muscles are described as a “bright motor double-flashing… nailed to our oak” (lines 21-23). The oak mentioned refers to the backboard of the basketball hoop, but it could also be referring to the frame of a canvas, with the ahtletes’ bright motor muscles as the subject. By describing basketball through an artistic lens, Komunyakaa succeeds in creating art himself.
The poem, “Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, is very fluid, which parallels the “sprung rhythm” (line 18) that Komunyakaa uses to describe dunking the balls in the net. His frequent use of punctuation helps to break up the rhythm of the poem and each new line becomes a launching point, or spring, for a new idea. For example, in lines 11-13 Komunyakaa writes, “A high note hung there a long second. Off the rim.” He strategically placed the period in the middle of the line so as to break up the flow of the words. It causes the reader to pause after, “a long second,” which therefore helps to recreate that moment Komunyakaa is mentioning. Furthermore, Komunyakaa describes a long break away down the court with very little punctuation to upset the flow. He writes, “Dribble, drive to the inside, feint, & glide like a sparrow hawk” (line 32-33) By stringing these words together without any disruptive punctuation, he subconsciously recreates the swift movement of the basketball player down the court. These subtleties found in Komunyakaa’s poem help to make it an art form, similar to the art of basketball.