A poem about "Magic" Summary

A Poem for “Magic”
A Poem for “Magic”, written by Quincy Troupe is a truly dazzling poem. I’m not usually one who can easily relate to a poem but this one elicits so much passion for the game of basketball that it resonates in my head. The way that the game is described in the poem makes me think back to the mindset I had when I was just a little kid playing dunk ball on my 6 foot hoop in the driveway. I could do whatever I wanted on that hoop and it made the game feel magical being able to fly above the rim just how I imagine Magic Johnson feels when he’s playing on a regular 10 foot hoop. I can tell how much love Quincy has for the game of basketball just by how well he really describes how “Magic” played the game. He uses words that pop in every line and they create vivid pictures of all these different moves I’ve personally seen “Magic” perform. He talks about “magic’s” deadly no look pass, his glorious sky hook, how he glides through the air, and all of this shows just how beautiful the game of basketball is, and just how much Troupe admires it. My belief is that Troupe thinks of basketball in rhythm and he wants that to translate into his poem. I don’t know if he has a distinct love for Magic Johnson or if he just recognizes that “Magic” is the best player you could use to relate basketball and rhythm, but it’s the greatest example I can personally think of. He uses phrases like “herk and jerk” , “juke and dazzle”, and “shake and bake” to make his readers feel how “Magic” danced his way down the court and took it to the hoop. The text makes me feel as if he learned basketball personally from “Magic”. I think his reason for choosing Magic Johnson has a deeper meaning than that he really likes him as a player. The use of the word “Magic” throughout the poem makes me feel like the actions Magic Johnson is performing in the poem are truly magic. Troupe says “you created your own space to fly through” to describe him blazing down the court, then goes on to say “we expect your wings to spread feathers” which I think is a perfect way to describe Magic Johnson’s explosive ability and his gracious flight through air, but it also creates “magical” images in my head of Johnson flying through the air with angels wings. He refers to “Magic’s” name as a “neon name” early in the poem and later refers to him as wearing an electric smile “neon as your name” making me envision “Magic” even more as a magical man. This makes remember the feelings I had when I used to watch the movie “Space Jam” starring Michael Jordan. This movie made the game of basketball feel magical because Jordan struggles through almost the whole movie playing these huge monsters that he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to compete against until he drinks the magical green formula that gives him the ability to fly and stretch his arms multiple body lengths. The song “I
Believe I Can Fly” comes on when Jordan first feels his powers working, and magically this song popped into my head when I was reading this poem! I especially like this poem because it makes me think of all my glory days of playing basketball and also watching basketball. I feel as if I can relate to everything Troupe is saying. I remember when I stepped out onto that court my first time starting varsity in high school I felt like there was magic in the room. All the shouts and cheers seemed to blend together but in the end all the noise was for me and my team just as he refers to it in the poem “sweating chants of your name”. The poem brings back the memories of how close my team was and how we felt like a family out there on the court. It mentions the passes he sent to Kareem, who was the post player on his team and how he had a glorious skyhook. My favorite move was the skyhook and I remember it just as he described Kareem “popping the cords”. In music, chords are the base structure of any song just like post players on a basketball team are the base of the team. They don’t do anything too exciting but they take the shots every team needs to take in order to play a game, or “pop the chords” every song needs to have rhythm. The game of basketball has five players in the game at once and I keep making a connection of this to the five lines on a musical staff. Each line has a different note just like every player on a team has a different specialty, and there’s an unlimited amount of ways you can arrange these five players to create a different rhythm just as you can change the notes on a staff to create a different song. You can have set plays or rhythms but “Magic” often creates his rhythm on the fly just like he does in the poem. In summary, this poem brought up feelings within me that I haven’t felt in a long time, such as the feeling I’d get every time I’d watch Jordan get his magic powers. Space Jam was the movie that got me into basketball because it made it seem so magical. I recently have fallen out of watching and playing basketball but doing the analysis of this poem has made me revisit feelings I haven’t had in years. This poem truly provided magic in the way that it made me think of these thoughts I had when I was just a young boy, it achieved exactly what I think Troupe wanted it to, it achieved magic.