There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

Pregame introduces the organizational system utilized in the rest of the book. Structured like the timing of a basketball game, the book is organized into a “pregame” and “quarters,” with sections of poetry and essays separated by minute and second counts. Additionally, the “quarters” also utilize organizational breaks called “timeouts” and “intermissions” in which Abdurraqib presents poems.

The author begins Pregame by asking the reader to “commiserate, here and now, about our enemies” (3). He states that knowledge of one’s enemies requires an understanding of what is beloved, since an enemy is any person who cannot recognize why someone or something is loved, and shows no inclination to learn about it. He points out that people often treat hand signals used by Black people as signs of ill intent or criminal activity, instead of signs of affection between individuals. To think of private gestures as uniformly sinister is to deny the humanity of those gestures, the practice they take to get them right, and their ability to signify intimacy, trust, and a space of sanctuary. Hand signs prove that “we’ve put some work into our love for each other” (5), states Abdurraqib.

The narrative moves to Abdurraqib’s memory of his father during dinner times.