| Tommy | |
| Author: | Stephen King |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | memento mori, confessional poetry |
| Published In: | Playboy, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams |
| Publication Type: | poem |
| Publisher: | Playboy, Charles Scribner's Sons |
| Media Type: | |
| Pub Date: | March, 2010 |
| Preceded By: | Mister Yummy |
| Followed By: | The Little Green God of Agony |
"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."
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.