Slam, Dunk, & Hook

The basket, 10 feet high and only attainable through a team move, accurate shot, or the athletic contortion of a slam dunk, symbolizes the idea of an irresistible dream—but one that is hard to attain and comes with the risk of failure. Komunyakaa dramatizes these two possible outcomes, with the first shot going in and the second bouncing off the rim. The net is the focus of the successful shot, with erotic undercurrents in the alliterative description “a hot / swish of strings like silk” (Lines 4-5). The delicacy of the sound, and of the strings comprising the net, also evokes the effortlessness of a great musician playing an instrument. By contrast, the failed shot or frenzied play later in the poem activates the hard rim of the basket and the backboard behind it, creating the tension-filled images of the vibrating rim and the splintered backboard. These parts of the basket symbolize the tension or damage in the boys’ bodies as they seek a release from their problems by endlessly playing the game.

The original labyrinth was a maze of passages built by King Minos of Crete to contain the shameful half-man-half-bull Minotaur to whom his wife had given birth after the sea-God Poseidon made her fall in love with a bull.