Slam Dunk And Hook Poem By Yusef Komunyakaa Summary

The author of “Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, Yusef komunyakaa, presents the reader both sides, in which basketball is involved in the life of the players which are in the court and how they outside the court. This poem exemplifies the vigor of the young athlete’s team in their zone of comfort. Creative imagery, hyperbole, and personification give the reader an idea of what these athletes do, in order to isolate themselves from reality. This reflect the player’s reaction toward basketball which we can infer are durable feeing by just comprehending the way he describes their feeling in the court. To begin with, “Slam, Dunk & Hook” is the bliss-out of the sport called basketball, presenting how dominion and beauty enthused each athlete. The beginning of the poem centers its attention by giving explicit imagery, of how basketball is an essential tool for these player’s lives. Using their sneakers as an insignia to show their economic status reveling that they are not so low on income by “mercury insignia on our sneakers”, displaying their sneakers are Nikes, but also we can identify that Nikes are expensive. On the other hand, imagery play a role by

“We could almost last forever” (line 8-9), which mean they feeling immortal. The poet keeps using hyperbole by saying “he played none stop all day/ when Sonny boy’s mama died” just the shift from a whole team where they called themselves as we, change to he which is the syntax. And because of that we can infer that sonny is an African American boy by the way he calls his mother “mama”, therefore basketball was his way to confront his problems, the reliever was basketball. “we jibed & rolled the ball off our fingertips” that line shows that basketball was more them a game it was their life; the way they say we basically bounce the ball like our last score. As if the mal was they goal, basically their essential