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Play, download and edit the free video Board Man Gets Paid/Word Fan Nets Play.

To keep my spirits up during self-isolation, I made this video to celebrate a more touch-filled and jubilant time: the Raptors' championship victory. I wrote the poem, "Board Man Gets Paid/Word Fan Nets Play," the day after both the Raptors' victory parade and UTSC's convocation, a twice-yearly celebration that also inspires championship-level happiness. This video is dedicated to Raptors commentators Jack and Matty D, the voices of our joy, and it was prompted by Nathaniel G Moore's Poetry Month celebration, MELTDOWN.

Board Man Gets Paid/Word Fan Nets Play

My hands are ecstatic. They clap for Klaw’s
dominance. Raise pints to match his play: gulp for point,
dribble for sip. High-five, in the night-brightening clamour
of our championship, this clapping mass. “Board man gets
paid!”—a blasted fan in a throwback Raps jersey banks
Kawhi’s motto off our street-overwhelming cacophony, his
hand lofting rapturously into mine. Our instrument—palm
slapping palm—chimes in the peal of all the disparate
uniting chants, in this concert of air horns, car horns, body-
boggling big rig horns, and the crack of fireworks arcing
out of sunroofs, echoing flashes in the towered glass. Tipsy,
I lay up giddy riffs as I dish high-fives to the crowd: “lord,
man gets played,” “sword man gets slayed,” “poured can
gets trayed.” Is this the possibility or impossibility
of a city? All this joy. This contact. Eyes meeting to
melody stunning, stupid smiles. Hands we learn
to love soreness through, the hurt trophied by this life-
ingraining touch. Days later, this poem tips off in my head
as my hands begin to sting. The championship
parade intoxicates millions, drumming rhapsodic
howls in the city’s roaring core. I’m a ways north, seated
with fellow faculty at convocation, applauding with gusto
each student’s triumph. Together, my palms still in
the silence between the bidding stage-ward of graduates
like I’m praying they will never lose. Beside me,
my colleague does the same. I once clapped for her
in awe when she marvelled me with her little one’s
innocent riff. She had turned the car radio on
for her daughter just as the host intoned: “violence
erupted in the city.” Before she could downplay
the report, her little girl squealed: “Mommy,
there are violins in the city!” She’s right about these
strings, the possible impossibility of their music.
But how do we really listen for them? What’s our
bow? When do we stop clapping and commit to
the callouses, the gnarled fingers, dedicating
our hands to learning how to play?

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