A Note To Someone On The Poem Makin’ Jump Shots By Michael S. Harper

 Makin’ Jump Shots

MICHAEL S. HARPER

He waltzes into the lane

’cross the free-throw line,

fakes a drive, pivots,

floats from the asphalt turf

in an arc of black light,

and sinks two into the chains.

One on one he fakes

down the main, passes

into the free lane

and hits the chains.

A sniff in the fallen air—

he stuffs it through the chains

riding high:

“traveling” someone calls—

and he laughs, stepping

to a silent beat, gliding

as he sinks two into the chains.

There’s no warrant for thinking of bondage or any kind of enslavement, only for the constraint of the rules of the game and what must be done to triumph over them. “chains and “two in the chains” are repeated because that repetition mimics what goes on in basketball, repeatedly putting two (and now sometimes three) in the basket, body of which before made of metal, now mesh. 

The contrast between the “free lane” and the “chains” shows the play of what’s unconstrained within the game’s rules and demands. And the accusation of “travelling,” which ordinarily suggests freedom, shows how an undisciplined, violative move is a trammelled freedom within the rules. 

If you think about it, a reading of this poem noting any kind of enslavement is grotesque. There’s a casual athletic ease, joy, grace, artistry and beauty in playing within the rules and transcending the game’s demands: “waltzes,” “floats,” “an arc of black light,” “riding high,” “laughs,” “stepping to a silent beat,” “gliding,” all punctuated by the triumphant determined action in each two point triumph, “sinks,” “hits,” “stuffs,” “sinks.”

There’s no moral dimension in the poem, only a most skilled and resonant rendering of so much of what’s involved in “makin’ jump shots,” so much of what can be on city courts with baskets composed of metal chains, proxy for all that players are up against in making those shots.

 It’s no kind of thralldom. If anything, it negates it. What once chains were a metonym for, namely enslavement, are now what are “overcome,” shot after shot. Slavery has come to this.