Maggie Hill
Stop Writing; Watch Basketball
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, my novel narrates the 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.So, if you’re writing and crave inspiration, stop writing. Take your subconscious writer’s mind to a live game of basketball. Or football, or even watch the Mets – they’re like reading a good suspense novel. The point is, those athletes are physically using their bodies the way writers use words to perform acrobatically in our heads. It’s a great time-out, with no foul to worry about. Give it a shot.
Maggie Hill has been published in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and Scholastic. Her short stories appear in Lakeshore Literary (Pushcart nominated), Cleaver Literary, Embark Literary. Among her artist residences are Yaddo and Ragdale. Her first novel, Sunday Money, was published in May 2024. www.MaggieHill.com
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Writing Tips.
