Basketball at the YMCA: Six Word Memoirs Slice of Life #sol18 8/31

My kid in full Westbrook attire:
Shirt, shoes, socks, armbands, attitude, intensity.
Guards kid who channels Kevin Durant:
KD shirt, shoes, shorts, socks, shot.
They all rep their favorite players
Kobe, King James, Dame Dollar, Harden
Jordan is the constant. Ubiquitous, universal.
Everybody wants to be like Mike.

Shot is flat. Forgot to jump?
South Gym smells like swimming pool.
North Gym smells like dirty socks.
A clank off the rim. Denied.
Hard foul. A flurry of cursing.
Sneakers squeak ball bounces net swishes

Kids divide into shirts and skins.
But two skins leave shirts on
It looks like seven on three.
Confusion abounds. “Which team are you?!”

slice-of-life_individual

Posted

March 8, 2018

slice of life

Elisabeth Ellington

Tags:

#sol18, slice of life

Comments

22 responses to “Basketball at the YMCA: Six Word Memoirs Slice of Life #sol18 8/31”

alexpapp

March 8, 2018

This is brilliant. Parsing it down to six words per line makes everything feel so profound.

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  Thank you! I was frankly feeling a bit bored at the Y yesterday but got much more engaged when I pulled out my writer’s notebook and started jotting down six word lines!
  
  Reply
Mallory Krueger

March 8, 2018

I love this idea for a slice!! It makes great poetry. I need to try this format out this month. Thanks for the inspiration!

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 8, 2018
  
  Thanks! It was fun to write. I think it needs one more little cluster of six-word lines to round it out and bring it to closure, but this was all I had time for today!
  
  Reply
  1. Mallory Krueger
    
    March 8, 2018
    
    No, I think it’s great the way it is!
edifiedlistener

March 8, 2018

Very clever use of the 6 word memoirs. I appreciate the confusion at the end. Admittedly, I am confused. Which team indeed?

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  It cracks me up that it happens every.single.time. Someone’s always yelling at someone else for refusing to take their shirt off!
  
  Reply
arjeha

March 8, 2018

I really like what you did with this. I wouldn’t think of writing something like this where each line has the same number of words. It would be a great exercise to use with students.

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  I don’t usually write poetry but there’s something about the six word format that’s both doable and poetic–at least for me! I usually use the form a few times a semester with my students, and they always surprise me with the depth and power of their lines!
  
  Reply
Leigh Anne Eck

March 8, 2018

I love this form! Having a daughter who played basketball and now coaches, I have spent many hours in a gym. I can relate with everything from the sounds, the smells, …well, maybe not the shirts and skins! 🙂

I love the confusion!

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  So many hours spent watching basketball! The gym feels like a second home to me by now!
  
  Reply
carwilc

March 8, 2018

I have written six word stories, before, but I have never grouped them into a bigger story. Way cool!

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  Once I start writing them, I find it’s hard to stop, and then somehow they sound better to me when I put them together. It’s a fun format for sure.
  
  Reply
Michelle @litlearningzone

March 9, 2018

Agreed! I contemplated a six-word memoir for a slice, but couldn’t narrow it down enough, but grouped together! Brilliant! Love that challenge too! Did your son help you out with some basketball lingo? Or did you fly solo? Impressive!

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  Thanks, Michelle! We are all basketball all the time around here. We spend hours at the gym, listen to basketball podcasts on the drive home, and then watch basketball until bedtime! My son is truly obsessed. Sometimes I think I hear basketball announcers and buzzers in my sleep!
  
  Reply
  1. carwilc
    
    March 9, 2018
    
    My younger son, K, did competitive basketball and we had a similar lifestyle for years. Surprisingly, I really miss it now!
mel marie

March 9, 2018

I am so going to try this. Definitely inspired! Must have made basketball even more fun to be writing these in your head 🙂

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  I was bored that evening, and it definitely helped to pull out the writer’s notebook and start jotting down these six word mini slices.
  
  Reply
Trina Haase

March 9, 2018

I love the rhythm of this poem, especially the alliteration and assonance! I really like the idea of grouping your six words into a larger piece – genius!

Reply
1. Elisabeth Ellington
  
  March 9, 2018
  
  Thanks, Trina! Totally stolen from some other slicer a long time ago, no doubt!
  
  Reply
  1. Trina Haase
    
    March 11, 2018
    
    I love all of of the ideas to emulate from fellow bloggers!
10 Takeaways from a Month of Slicing: Slice of Life #sol18 31/31 | the dirigible plum

March 31, 2018

[…] with no real answers, to write short, to write really really tiny (like I ever do that. I even turn the six-word memoir into a longer piece!), to write personal, to write half-baked thoughts that really need a little […]

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