Module 4: Biographical Poetry

 

Hoop Kings 2: New Royalty

Bibliography

Smith Jr., Charles R. (2021). Hoop kings 2: New royalty. Candlewick Press. ISBN: 9781536210354

 

Summary

The book is made up of a collection of poetry written by Charles R. Smith Jr.; the poems are all about different current famous NBA basketball players.  Some of the players included in the book are Lebron James, Stephen Curry, and Anthony Davis.  The book includes a table of contents with the player’s name, poem title, and the page number for each poem in the book.  Each poem is laid out on a two-page spread with the poem and an accompanying photo with some added bright orange highlights that connect the photo to the poem.  The book also includes notes about each of the poems at the end of the book.  In these notes, the author discusses a little more about the player and why he chose to write the poem the way he did.  This added content would be a great way to show students how I writer plans out and thinks about designing a poem.

 

Analysis

This collection of poetry would be found most interesting to upper elementary and middle school students.  The vocabulary in some of the poems as well as the basketball jargon may make the poems difficult for lower elementary students to understand.  One of the poems includes the names of several Greek gods and goddesses from mythology, which may entice older students to learn more about them, whereas younger students may find it overwhelming.

The collection of poems is very diverse in their use of poetic elements and style.  One poem is written in acrostic style whereas another is told in a longer storytelling type style with rhyming lines.  Some of the poems use repetition of key words or phrases to emphasize something like anticipation when the author says, “it comes” and “here it comes” throughout one poem.  Most of the poems include a lot of verbs and action phrases to describe what the basketball player is best at on the court.  This creates a lot of imagery and visualization opportunities for the reader.  For example, a poem about Kyrie Irving includes a part that states, “Kyrie dribbling, crossing and turning and swerving and spinning until Kyrie comes to a stop behind the three-point line then lets it pop…”. 

A couple poems go into more detail about the player’s early life or their journey to the NBA rather than just what they do on the court.  Some of the poems included lines that rhyme, but many of them do not.  The author seemed to want to make sure the mood, imagery, and information about the player was most important over the rhyming of words or lines. This combination of various styles keeps the reader interested and engaged, as well as allowing them to experience different styles of poetry writing.  However, the diversity of poem structure also makes it difficult to find a rhythm throughout the book and with each poem the reader chooses to read.

 

Poem

The Mighty (Giannis Antetokounmpo)

Blessed by the gods

with warrior gifts,

a mortal rises to become

the Mighty Giannis.

 

Feet of Hermes,

vision of Artemis,

artistry of Apollo,

strength of Hephaestus.

Cool

confident

calm demeanor

and warrior spirit

of the goddess Athena.

 

Rage of Ares,

power of Poseidon,

the Mighty Giannis

STRIKES

like Zeus with lightning!

 

Activity

A selection of poems from this book could be used with other biographical poetry books to introduce how poetry can be used to tell a story about a person’s life just like a traditional biography.  This book also shows students that not all biographical poetry books are about poets or historical figures.  Students could then be challenged to choose a famous person that they look up to that they can use to create their own biographical poem.  This activity could also reinforce the use of school or district online databases as a source of information for student biographical poems.  This activity would be best used for upper elementary or middle school students.  However, it could be adapted to younger students by having them write a biographical poem about themselves or scaffolded for special education students by showing them the poem about Joel Embiid that only uses the letters in his first name as an acrostic biographical poem.