Fast Break

by Edward Hirsch
p. 545

First of all, this poem first caught my attention because I am a big fan of basketball. I love to watch and play the game. After hooking me with the title alone, the poem then does a fantastic job of using details with many adjectives and adverbs to build this scene on a basketball court. It has great imagery; I can picture the whole thing happening, like it were a commercial for the NBA, moving in slow motion. The form of the poem contributes to this, as every action is separated into two-lined stanzas: seventeen actions that make seventeen stanzas which this poem consists of. It also has great language with its diction and uses many similies and metaphors. The poem flows very nicely as you speak it, as does the fast break the poem describes. It consists of one team possession of the basketball, and includes every player on the team, starting from when the center is "gathering the orange leather from the air like a cherished possession" to the two fowards "moving together as brothers" and ending with "an orange blur floating perfectly through the net." The story of this poem is also timeless within the realm of basketball; this could've happened the year basketball was invented as it happens today and will continue to happen as long as the sport is played.