18 pages • 36 minutes read
Edward HirschFast Break
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"To an Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housman (1896)
Another elegy using athleticism as a kind of antidote or contrast to death. Housman also brings vertical movement into the poem, describing two separate occasions when young men lift the athlete to their shoulders: after his great victory in sport, and at his funeral procession.
"Elegy for Jane" by Theodore Roethke (1953)
Roethke’s elegy for his student poetically addresses the idea of grief circles, as he struggles to define his role as a witness to life and death and most of all a mourner of a girl’s lost promise.
"In Memoriam A.H.H." by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1850)
One of the best-known elegies in English on the death of a close friend, Tennyson’s poem explores the three stages of elegy: grief, praise, and conciliation. Tennyson uses form to enact his life intertwined with his friend’s life: A chiastic, or mirrored, rhyme pattern echoes their mirrored association, while cross alliteration and internal rhyme knit lines together.
"Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" by James Wright (1990)
American poet James Wright explores different emotional sources for the rituals enacted in American team sports. The brotherhood and transcendence found in “Fast Break” does not come for the football players in Wright’s poem. They instead pantomime youth and vitality to distract a blighted working class community from its daily misery. While “Fast Break” depicts glory interrupted by a flash of frailty and death, Wright’s poem depicts frailty and death interrupted by a brief flash of glory.
Further Literary Resources
"Edward Hirsch: ‘Many of carry the dead around with us. We shouldn’t be ashamed of that’" by Tim Adams (2014)
Interviewed on the publication of his A Poet’s Glossary, Edward Hirsch discusses grieving the loss of his son. The interview includes the definition of “elegy” Hirsch wrote for the glossary.
"The Immense Intimacy, the Intimate Immensity" by Edward Hirsch (2006)
Poetry Foundation, the website for Poetry magazine, offers the first chapter of Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem, divided into short lessons. Many excerpts address issues central to “Fast Break”; Hirsch’s discussion of the transformation through descriptive language fits especially well with the techniques at work in “Fast Break.”
"Edward Hirsch" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri’s short essay describes the restorative and exhilarating experience of reading Hirsch’s work.
"Finding the Words" by Alec Wilkinson (2014)
An exploration of Hirsch’s book-length elegy for his son Gabriel.
Listen to Poem
"Fast Break" by Edward Hirsch
The poet reads and discusses the poem’s composition.
"Fast Break" by Edward Hirsch
When read by basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, Hirsch’s poem takes on additional resonance.
