sleuth, John Edward “Jed” “Hammerhead” Ounstead is such a character he has two nicknames.
Hammerhead is a professional wrestler and a private investigator. His investigating techniques focus on the physical.
It is patronizing but I admit I had not thought of Hammerhead appreciating poetry. Choosing “DO NOT GO GENTLE” for his new wrestling marketing catchphrase was striking. I found myself drifting once again into patronization with speculation on pro wrestling fans envisioning where Hammerhead would not go gentle. Within his family, while I am confident his Irish cousin Declan, from the land of 20,000 poets, would know the phrase is from the famed poem of Dylan Thomas I am equally sure Declan would, in public, provide a crude and lascivious intent to the phrase.
Looking around the net I found that the WWE had created a promotional video for its WWE 2K 14 video game featuring John Cena reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. It is a powerful video.
I expect Thomas, an iconoclastic personality, would approve of his words appearing on a promotional wrestling tee shirt for Hammerhead “above my usual logo of a two-by-four piece of western red cedar with a bolt of lightning crackling through the wood”.
I do doubt Thomas, in the writing of the poem, was inspired by the cricket teams he loved.
Hammerhead confirms he is a poetry aficionado when he quotes Oscar Wilde on temptation.
During my internet wandering I found an article on The Conversation website, How Sport and Poetry Make the Perfect Match on T.V. I found the story fascinating.
The video of Serena Williams reciting Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise was moving.
Until reading the article I had forgotten that poetry was an event in the original Greek Olympic Games and early in the 20th Century at the modern Olympics.
On a cruise Sharon and I had a chance to visit the original Olympic Games site at Olympia. While the buildings are in ruins you can walk on the pathway the athletes took to enter into the stadium which held 40,000 spectators. I am sure Hammerhead and Devlin would find a shiver go through them as I did when I entered the stadium.
It is the second time this year I have read poetry in a crime fiction novel involving the life of a professional male athlete. In From Sweetgrass Bridge by Anthony Bidulka there is a haunting poem by the missing starting quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I quoted that poem in a follow up post to my review and added a poem from Dick Bass, a former football player, coach and executive, about football. I do not have any pro wrestling poetry but I expect some has been written.
The whole poem of Thomas could be an anthem for the sometimes quixotic quests of Hammerhead. He is one of the “good men” and the “wild men” who will:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Let his time to rage be many books into the future.
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Links to Cena’s reading and the article on sport and poetry are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DBGHfWe-g
https://theconversation.com/how-sport-and-poetry-make-the-perfect-match-on-tv-233799
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Bronco Buster
I've always loved that Dylan Thomas poem, Bill, so it's a pleasure to see it here. And it is interesting how we fall into misconceptions about people because of what they do. And yet, poetry is everywhere, so it makes sense that professional athletes would feel it, too. You're fortunate you had the chance to see the original Olympic stadium. I'm sure it must have been a powerful experience.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. It is a memorable powerful poem. Thanks for reminding me poetry is everywhere and should not be thought unusual for professional athletes. The stadium was the highlight of our visit to the site. It was easy to visualize the original Olympics taking place there.
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