5 Basketball Books for Better Writing
My introduction to poetry happened in Madison Square Garden, back when the New York Knicks were, well, The Knicks. It was the mid-1970s and I was a kid who liked basketball. I was a girl, so I was basically relegated to spectator status. Title IX took some time to make it into the cultural possibilities for a girl in a working class Brooklyn neighborhood. Outside of CYO, and ending in 8th grade, girls’ basketball was short-lived and extracurricular.
But Madison Square Garden, that round behemoth a few short blocks from the F train, had poetry in its midst. Adonis-like players—Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Earl the Pearl—were spinning golden mythologies every time they played. Somehow, I got lucky and was able to actually attend one of these ferociously wonderful games. In person. Live. Court seats. Let the poetry begin.
Maybe I became a writer that night. Because the realest thing I ever saw was the magic of dunking. Up went The Pearl, alongside the basket, with a pass from Bradley, and he hung there—hung there, midair—before dropping that ball right in the hoop. Untouchable. Defying gravity. It was terrifying and charming and looked like a ballet. There should have been music accompanying it. This was what grace looked like. These men, these athletic men. They weren’t just playing basketball. They were like great big whales in the ocean, diving for the pure joy of it, coming up and spraying water out of their blowholes, then twirling back down. I loved them with all my heart.
So many years later, I’m having a book published about some imagined reality of a girl who loves basketball. Sunday Money is a coming-of-age story about a basketball-playing Catholic girl in 1970s Brooklyn. The novel follows the narrator as she hustles, on and off the court, to break free from the turmoil in her home and the rulebook “good” girls are supposed to follow.
Check out Maggie Hill’s Sunday Money here:
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Reading the following five books will lure the player, the artist, to reach with the full measure of their own talent for whatever basket they’re shooting for.
HOOP: A Basketball Life in Ninety-Five Essays, by Brian Doyle
I loved reading these short, poetic essays—the musicality of the words, the flowing pace, the passion and fellowship of people who love basketball….it made me want to get in there and be a better “player” as I crafted my novel. Brian Doyle shines a love language on basketball’s culture from a life lived observing and playing the game. 95 times.
How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius: What Game Designers, Economists, Ballet Choreographers, and Theoretical Astrophysicists Reveal About the Greatest Game on Earth, by Nick Greene
A little history, a little money, a little dance sequence—I thought I knew something about basketball. Turns out, I don’t have to be an astrophysicist to understand the game—but reading that particular take on hoops made me happy to go back and write about a simple layup. What an interesting collection of essays!
Hoop Muses: An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game; written by Kate Fagan, curated by Seimone Augustus, illustrated by Sophia Chang
The blurb on the front cover exclaims, “There is nothing like this book in existence.” They’re right! From the cover to every inside page, I feasted on imagery, fun facts, quotes about the long history of women’s basketball. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops—women’s basketball is like the Supreme Court of feminism. They have been fielding cases, making decisions, laying down the law for over a century. By the time the 37 words of Title IX blasted discrimination under educational programs or activities—women’s basketball became part of the legend of this game. Who wouldn’t be inspired?
Hoops, written by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson
This is the most beautifully illustrated book of the game I’ve ever seen. Each page is like an oil painting, a watercolor, a Rembrandt depicting the lyric-like descriptions that accompany them. I love how it captures the rapturous play of one-on-one, the raised hands of team defense, the cold circle of the basketball rim—it made me want to take every last pedestrian line out of whatever I was writing. It also enabled me to envision how art and language speak to us in some liminal place where imagination and inspiration play together.
Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball, by Todd F. Davis
This incredibly gorgeous collection of poets talking about their connection to basketball left me wonderstruck. I wish there was an audio version—I would love to hear these words in my ears, over and over, on a loop, while I’m writing. Like a mother who wouldn’t dare play favorites, I won’t tantalize by naming specific poets. I will say this, though. This book proves that the beating heart of basketball exists in verse.