Poetry in America with Elisa New (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Fast Break - full transcript

"Fast Break" by Edward Hirsch, featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Edward Hirsch, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol, and a chorus of pick-up basketball players.

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: In basketball,

a fast break
is a beautiful thing to watch.

From when the shot goes up,
to the box out of a center,

to the rebound,
to the outlet pass to the guard,

the forwards
running the lanes...

It all happens so quickly,

in such a quick game,
an instinctual game.

Some people,

they describe a play
in basketball

like the way
you describe a poem.

It's a moment out of time.



It unfolds with its
particular kind of beauty.

All the parts
are moving together.

Basketball is a game of motion,
a game of grace,

a game of physicality.

Basketball is a power game,
but it's also a game of finesse,

and it's a game of nuance.

And that's when
it really becomes art,

and that's when it really flows.

And a fast break, I hit upon,
was an integral play.

Everyone who plays basketball
knows it,

but it was something intact.

It begins with the other team
shooting and missing,

and then you run this play.

It has the circle of a poem.



It begins and ends.

It's not important to me that
you know much about poetry.

And even if you don't know
much about basketball,

you'll still get something
from this poem.

To test Edward
Hirsch's proposition,

I talked to three celebrated
basketball players:

Pau Gasol...

Pass the ball up
front and let the guy operate.

...Shane Battier...

...and Shaquille O'Neal.

Ostertag leaning on Shaq...

We'd see if poetry could help me
better to understand

the art of a fast break,

and if basketball
would help them

become better readers
of lyric poetry.

Ed, meanwhile, was game to coach
a group of pick-up players

in a high school gym

through
his carefully crafted play,

while I gathered everyone's
reflections on his poem.

"Fast Break: In Memory of Dennis
Turner, 1946-1984."

A hook shot kisses the rim
and hangs there, helplessly,

but doesn't drop,

and for once our gangly
starting center

boxes out his man
and times his jump perfectly,

gathering the orange leather
from the air

like a cherished possession,

and spinning around to throw
a strike to the outlet,

who's already shoveling
an underhand pass

toward the other guard,

scissoring past
a flat-footed defender

who looks stunned

and nailed to the floor
in the wrong direction,

trying to catch sight
of a high, gliding dribble,

and a man
letting the play develop

in front of him in slow motion,

almost exactly like a coach's
drawing on the blackboard,

both forwards
racing down the court,

the way that forwards should,

fanning out
and filling the lanes in tandem,

moving together as brothers,

passing the ball between them
without a dribble,

without a single bounce
hitting the hardwood,

until the guard
finally lunges out

and commits to the wrong man,

while the power forward
explodes past them in a fury,

taking the ball into the air,
by himself now,

and laying it gently
against the glass for a lay-up,

but losing his balance
in the process,

inexplicably falling,

hitting the floor
with a wild, headlong motion

for the game he loved
like a country,

and swiveling back to see

an orange blur floating
perfectly through the net.

How do you make
a single, winding sentence

imitate the movement
of a basketball play?

It had to be accurate
to basketball.

It's one long sentence,
and instead of...

It doesn't just represent
what's happening, or present it.

It actually embodies it,
the motion and the fluidity.

It's a series of actions
that are consecutive.

They're all tied together,
that without the first one,

there wouldn't be a second one.

Much like a basketball game.

Not a lot of punctuation
in basketball.

O'NEAL: The fast break
happens so fast,

and you don't have time
to add periods.

Magic Johnson gets the ball,
he gives it to Kareem,

Kareem throws it
to James Worthy,

James Worthy throws it back
out... boom, boom, boom, boom.

It just happens so fast that
you have to write it like that.

First, I wrote it all out
as one sentence.

And then, the poem went by
so fast,

that I wanted to draw more
attention to the detail

and create moments of, of...

They don't stop,

but they slow down
your attention

as you move through the play,

and you can see
the different parts.

The couplet has a feeling
of always twinning or pairing.

Yes.

And the slowing it down
was important

to give the reader time

to think through
what's happening.

Just, you read the two lines,

you kind of see
that everything's happening.

You go to the next two lines,
everything's still happening,

and it just gives that pause.

Yes, I mean, there are so many
ways in which these couplets

remind us of the game
of basketball.

I mean, they pivot
really quickly.

There are two sides to it.

You play offense
for a short period of time,

and then you play defense
for a short period of time.

And sometimes the possession
is long.

Sometimes the possession is
extremely short.

And it's this back and forth

that makes basketball
an exciting game.

And so I got the idea

that the couplets would also be
the pairing of the friends,

and the poem would unfold
that way

to get both the development of
the play, but also the feeling.

So it doesn't all just sweep
by you.

As life is always sweeping
by us, and poetry...

Is trying to stop that.

And time stretches in a way that
doesn't happen anywhere else.

But your mind is almost free
to a point

where everything else in
your life doesn't quite exist.

You know, writing a poem

where you've given yourself
some rules...

You said,
"This is one long sentence.

Then I have to write it
in couplets"...

There's a set of rules
that you are obeying,

just as anybody will obey
a set of rules

when they sign on
to play basketball.

I think it's important to pause
over that,

because poetry has form,

like so many other things
in the world have form.

And the fun of it

is understanding
what the constraints are.

Expectations of the form sets up

and the fulfillment
of those expectations

is extremely pleasurable
in poetry.

And it's only by setting up
the rules

and then either defying
or fulfilling the rules,

that you get that,
you get that feeling.

"A hook shot kisses
the rim, hangs there helplessly,

but doesn't drop."

When I see "kiss"
as it relates to basketball,

it has to do with being gentle,

because you can't...
you can't shoot it hard.

You have to be fluid and soft.

So, you know, a hook shot kisses
the rim, hangs there helplessly,

which means the shot looked
good, and, you know,

for a couple of seconds,
we're, like...

Especially, like, if you're down
by one,

and Kareem shoots a hook,
you're, like...

Uh...

Like, are we going to go "aww"
or are we going to celebrate?

So, it was a soft shot.

The Lakers haven't won
in a long time.

This is our shot to get it done.

So everything has to be done
right.

So it's like...

Yeah, so, like, everything

and, like, I finally broke
the double team

and, you know, Rik Smits is
guarding me, but he's not there.

So just let me kiss it up there
a little bit.

Oh, this one didn't fall.

So now I know, next time I have
to just kiss it a little harder.

Instead of going

now I have to go.

But it's also using
that figurative language,

"kisses" lets us know maybe that
there's a kind of human...

Tenderness.

There's a tenderness
and a human feeling.

And "kisses" is such
a slow, emotional moment,

and it contrasts the whole event
with that slow, loving moment.

And it just kind of brings a
little life to what's happening

and it starts the emotional
involvement of the reader.

The idea that the language
of basketball

hadn't been part of poetry
very much

seemed like a real opportunity.

Because when it comes
to basketball,

something I'm very comfortable
talking about,

so I see key words:
"kisses," "helplessly,"

"boxes out his man,"
"possession,"

"strike," "scissoring pass."

So I was very comfortable
in reading this.

This is player speak right here.

Yeah, but is there
a pleasure in player speak?

Yeah.

It's talking my language.

It's basketball Ebonics.

-: Uh-huh.

- It's language
that's been around.

The terms, uh...

"Spinning,"
"flat-footed defender."

For a basketball player,

they create a picture
almost immediately.

I never took time to find out
where the words came from.

It's just part of my...

Well, they're poetic.

Right, they are poetic.

It's just part of my,
just part of my everyday...

Why "shovel"?

"Shovel" would mean...

Okay, so a shovel motion
you go like this.

- Yeah.
- Okay?

A regular outlet you can do
two-hand, you can do overhand,

you can do a bounce pass.

But shovel to me is, like,
you get the ball,

"Oh, I see my guard running."

I don't have time to get it
and do all this

and go like that,

so I'm going to just shovel it
to him.

Even people
who never read poetry

love to say "hook shot."

Yes, it's true, it's true.

Right, they love
to say "hook shot."

They love to say "lay-up."

And every little thing in a game
can start a conversation:

"Oh, you should have passed it.

"Just took one more dribble.

He should have took his time
on the free throw line."

Like, when you've got a game
with 20,000 people,

every little thing
is a conversation.

And you are, yes, you're raising
the question of...

or the topic
of the delight people take

in talking about something
so beautiful.

Something that they love, yes.

And trying to match its beauty
with their conversation.

Like the game of basketball,

Hirsch's poem
is formally elegant,

and the poet also takes on
the challenge of showing us

just how expressive,
just how poetic

is the language of this sport.

But the poem is also funny.

It takes us into a world
where every second,

someone is goofing up,
missing a shot,

fumbling, falling down.

The poem's elegance is balanced,
or, rather, knocked off-balance

by human error.

And the humor that develops
around this error

gives the poem
its warmth of tone.

"And for once, our gangly"...

So am I reading that...

That's how I've read this poem,
"and for once..."

It's absolutely...
It's kind of a joke...

It's kind of a joke.

The guy never gets it right.

There's a kind of
a teasing tone,

like,
"For once you got it right,"

which suggests that, you know,

it's not the only time
he gets it right.

It doesn't usually
work out for me,

but I can imagine
what it feels like.

So this time, though...
- This time.

- While he boxed out, he boxed
out, the ball was in the air...

- Kind of like you
with the free throws.

Exactly.

This this this may be the most
beautiful line in the poem.

Uh-huh.

- Because notoriously,
for whatever reason,

the centers, or the bigger guys,

on every basketball team
I've ever played on,

are always the lightning rod
for criticism.

You know, maybe in a couple
of games,

we couldn't get
our fast break started

because Shaq wasn't
getting rebounds.

"Get the ball!
You're the biggest guy!

You're the biggest guy
out there!"

Reminded me of so many big,
talented players

that I've played with,
who I've yelled at.

Basketball, football, baseball,
especially for us fans,

it's something that when you
see graceful people do it,

it looks easy.

We think we can go out and do it

because I'm,
I'm like one of those guys.

Like, I've seen
Michael Phelps swim,

and I was, like,
"I could do that."

What really made me laugh was,
when I was writing it, was

"almost exactly like a coach's
drawing on the blackboard."

Plenty of us who grew up
in sports

had a lot of coaches
yelling at us.

You can almost hear a coach
yelling at you, "Stay wide!

"Touch the sidelines!
Touch the sidelines!"

And the coaches are
yelling at you

because they're diagramming
plays on the board,

and then you're going out
and it's never like that.

And you're not following it.

The coach's drawings
become a reality,

which is something that doesn't
always happen

when you're really
playing basketball.

The line between
success and failure is often

one more rotation
of the basketball.

It's the inch that you step
on the line.

Mistakes happen,
and turnovers happen,

and missed wide-open
lay-ups happen.

It's hard.

It's not like it's something
that just perfectly happens.

Yeah, it's just
sort of a miracle

it's all working out.

Because you're not
professionals, right?

Exactly, you're not
professionals.

- Yeah, and you're playing
for the love of the game.

- That's right.

They love it. - They love it.

- They only do it
because they love it.

He tripped,
not because he was clumsy,

just because he got off-balance.

But he still...

He swiveled it up,

looked over his shoulder
to watch it go in.

Boom.

But "Fast Break" is also
a classic elegy.

The poem's dedication...

"In Memory of Dennis Turner,
1946-1984"...

Alerts us early that something
more than a game

may be at stake here,

that the feelings developing
through the poem

will find a focus,

will concentrate
on a pair of friends,

and then on the disruption
of their friendship.

So we get to the moment
where the two forwards

are filling the lane in tandem,
moving together as brothers.

Calling them "brothers"
is a deeper statement

or a different kind
of statement.

Yes, it is.

And I think that this is still
unconscious, but at that moment,

the elegy part of it starts
coming back into your mind.

Yes.

But there is a feeling now

of two guys being separated out,

passing the ball between them

with a particular
kind of connection.

My coach, Dale Brown,
used to always say,

"You guys have to be attached
to the umbilical cord,

"especially on defense.

If this guy moves this way,
you've got to move that way."

So, forwards...
- So you're like twins.

- Yes, you're like twins.

So I'm outside,
and I see my brother running,

I got to take off running.

I'm not going to say,
"Hey! Hey, why are you running?"

He runs, I run.

To be able to relate
to a teammate as a brother,

especially on the floor,

to work in sync with him,
makes a huge difference.

This kind of poetry isn't often
considered the world,

part of the world of men,

because poetry is still often
feminized in our culture.

And it just seems to me
that men have feelings, too.

And there's male kinship,
and this is taking us back

to, to some of these, you know,
great elegies of men

who lose who lose other men
and express their love.

The key thing in the elegy
is always the precision

of the relationship between the
person who's writing the poem

and the person who died.

And if I can tell you
a personal story about that.

Please.

I'd started teaching
at Wayne State University,

my first teaching job
in my late 20s and early 30s,

and I met this guy, and he
became my best friend there.

His name was Dennis Turner;
he was from New York.

He grew up in Queens,
a big Irish family in Queens.

And we started playing
basketball together.

And we were
in the English Department.

He taught film, but we liked
to talk about hoops,

and it reminded us of something.

There are actually times
that I do go back

and think about moments

playing in the back
of my grandparents' house

or playing in the playground
of my school,

and definitely playing with my
dad and my brother growing up.

That was something that was...

moments that will always
be there, and will always...

I'll always remember
and cherish them.

"Gathering the orange
leather from the air

like a cherished possession."
O'NEAL: Yes.

Which means, "This is not just
a play, but this is..."

O'NEAL: This is my life,
this is my livelihood.

It's how I take care
of my family.

And where I finally
have the chance

to where I can get
to the next level.

So now that I'm here,
you really have to cherish it.

One day I took...
Dennis had a stomachache.

I took him to the hospital,
and when he...

by the time he came out,

it looks like, it looked as if
he had primary liver cancer,

which it turns out
is what he had.

While we were driving home,
we were both stunned.

He said, "If I do have liver
cancer, and I die,

you owe me a poem."

And I said, "What?"

He goes,
"Yes, you owe me a poem."

"Okay."

And he said, "Could you try not
to make it too romantic?"

I go, "Really? Really?

You're giving me an assignment?"

That summer, he did get sick.

He turned into an old man
in the course of a summer,

and he did die,

and I felt I had this
responsibility to write a poem.

So the brothers are passing
the ball between them,

and then I think
there's the moment

where the guy goes up
for the shot,

as you do in basketball,

but the metaphorical
significance of this

is not in basketball,
which is now from the elegy,

is, he's being singled out.

"While the power forward
explodes past them in a fury,

"taking the ball into the air,
by himself now,

"and laying it gently against
the glass for a lay-up,

"but losing his balance in the
process, inexplicably falling,

"hitting the floor,
with a wild, headlong motion

for the game he loved
like a country."

I think the only time

you use the word "love"

is "a game he loved
like a country."

Paul... Paul Valery, the French
poet, spoke of a ligne donnee,

"a given line," where,
in other words,

after all the things that
you had rationally planned,

something comes to you
as a gift.

To me, that was the gift.

And the reason it was a gift
to me...

"for the game he loved
like a country"...

Is because it seemed to me
completely true about Dennis.

Like, when I think of him loving
a country,

it's, like, him loving his home.

He's feeling
like this is the place

where he can completely
be himself and be aggressive

and be competitive,

but at the same time,
feel that love for the game

and that trust
for his teammates.

And I didn't understand it
until I wrote it down;

that is, he loved basketball

the way some people love
their countries.

And the reason for that
is because...

- A patriot of the game.
- He was a patriot of the game.

And I think it's because
he grew up

playing street ball in Queens,

and it kept him connected
to the neighborhood.

- It was in his blood.

And it brought him back
to something

that he believed in
and belonged to.

Well, that, to me,
is the line that just jumps out

of the whole poem.

It gives me goosebumps, even.

He loves it in a completely
organic kind of way,

in a way that's built up
over a long time,

like you would like and love

and feel affection
towards your country.

Not a patriotic
kind of affection,

but something actually deeper...

A connection to community,
maybe to soil, to family.

And so you played basketball.

You weren't just
in this academic atmosphere.

You weren't just
with these people

who were just teaching classes.

You were also
in some other realm.

Yes.

- And basketball put him
in touch with that.

And so this is a poem

about a particular friendship,
but also that friendship

as it's embedded
in an institution...

- In a male world.
- ...Of male bonding.

- Yes, yes, absolutely.

Sports are amazing
because it reveals character.

I don't think
it builds character;

I think it reveals character.

It's, it's rare
that everything's smooth

and everyone gets along.

There's always adversity
you're overcoming.

There's problems.

There's aches,
both mental and physical.

The people you go
on this journey with

understand
what you're going through.

"Taking the ball into the air
by himself now

and laying it gently against
the glass for a lay-up."

"But losing his balance in the
process, inexplicably falling,

hitting the floor."

It's still a basketball player
taking the final shot of a play.

- Yeah.
- But then when you go,

"But losing his balance in the
process, inexplicably falling,"

that's the moment
where we understand

that we have been reading
an elegy all along.

And I had him, you know,
"Still tumble into the stands

for the game he loved
like a country."

And then I had, "Swiveling back
to see an orange blur

floating perfectly
through the net"

when he gets to make the shot.

Well, there's this retrospective
view of the whole play,

of...

There's a moment
of looking back,

as if he is seeing
his whole life.

The feeling of the poem
is similar to the feeling

of that basketball play,

and that person lives on
in the poem

as they would in the time period
that exists in the,

in the actual motion
of the play.

And that's the moment, I think,

where everything, you hope,
clicks.

"Fast Break" has come
to a conclusion,

and the life has come
to a conclusion.

And it's a kind of rest.

It's... - It's a good death.

It is fulfilled,
it is fulfilled.

And something has come
to a kind of completion.

I think it was a huge...

It took me a long time
to write this poem,

and I was also struggling
with something.

And I think the poem
is a kind of recognition

that my friend's life
really has come to an end.

O'NEAL: In Memory
of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984.

A hook shot kisses the rim

and hangs there, helplessly,
but doesn't drop.

And for once,
our gangly starting center

boxes out his man
and times his jump...

...perfectly,

gathering the orange leather
from the air

like a cherished possession...

And spinning around to throw
a strike to the outlet,

who is already shoveling
an underhand pass...

Toward the other guard,
scissoring past

a flat-footed defender...

Who looks stunned
and nailed to the floor

in the wrong direction,

trying to catch sight...

Of a high, gliding dribble,

and a man letting the play
develop in front of him...

In slow motion,

almost exactly
like a coach's drawing

on the blackboard...

Both forwards racing down
the court,

the way that forwards should,
fanning out...

And filling the lanes
in tandem...

Moving together as brothers,
passing the ball...

Between them
without a dribble...

Without a single bounce
hitting the hardwood...

Until the guard
finally lunges out...

And commits to the wrong man...

While the power forward
explodes past them in a fury...

Taking the ball into the air,
by himself now...

And laying it gently against
the glass for a lay-up...

But losing his balance
in the process...

Inexplicably falling,
hitting the floor...

With a wild, headlong motion...

For the game he loved
like a country...

And swiveling back
to see an orange blur...

Floating perfectly
through the net.