| "Tommy" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Stephen King | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | memento mori, confessional poetry | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Playboy , The Bazaar of Bad Dreams | ||
| Publication type | poem | ||
| Publisher | Playboy, Charles Scribner's Sons | ||
| Media type | |||
| Publication date | March, 2010 | ||
| Chronology | |||
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"Tommy" is a narrative poem by Stephen King, first published in the March, 2010 edition of Playboy , [1] and later collected and re-introduced in the November 3, 2015 anthology The Bazaar of Bad Dreams . [2] In the new introduction King disputes the famous adage (attributed to many celebrities, including Grace Slick, Robin Williams, Paul Kantner, Joan Collins, and Dennis Hopper): "If you remember the Sixties, you weren't there."
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The poem is free verse and steeped in the slang and cultural references of the 1960s, a decade which encompassed all of King's teenage years. It describes the unique burial of the titular young man, a hippie who died of leukaemia, and the subsequent lives of his closest friends.
