Poetry Monday

Since I mentioned it this weekend here is my poem about Howard Hill, the great archer who worked on Flynn's Robin Hood.

Howard Hill  

by Peter Swanson    

He must have had hands

     that could deliver a martini

          with a meniscus across a shuddering room

of dancing inebriates

     all the way to his best girl,

           never a spilled drop. He must have had a heart

as big as a breadbox,

     vision exact as bomb sights,

          and when, in 1938, he was asked

by some studio man

     to do all the archery work

          on the new Robin Hood picture with Flynn—

to fire arrows

     toward the chests of stuntmen—

          he must have said yes without a flash of hesitation.

When he saw the square

     of balsa, felt-backed, steel-plated,

          fitted under the costumes, he must have seen a target

he could master

     like the prune he could pluck

          off the head of a man a half a football field away.

And when, on Curtiz’s cue,

     he launched the first arrow

          through the smoke-blue air of the set to land,

note-perfect, quivering,

    into the chest of some underpaid player,

          he must have looked more myth than mortal,

at least seven feet tall,

     lighting a smoke with no wasted moves,

          eyes already hunting into the distance, designing

arcs yet to happen, ready

     to take his mark and shoot

          another shaft safely toward the heart of a man.    

Archery in the Movies

I haven't seen it yet but I will be checking out The Hunger Games some time in the next couple of weeks. I enjoyed the trilogy of books and hope to feel likewise about the films themselves--I've done a little web browsing to garner opinions and am not surprised that the backlash has begun, with all sorts of critics (Andrew O'Hehir of Salon comes to mind) taking potshots at the phenomenon more than the film. Oh, and by the way, a lot of critics have pointed out that the film does the same thing that the imaginary government does in the film's narrative, i.e. doles out entertainment via teenagers killing one another. News alert: in the film's narrative real kids are dying while in the film it's faked. There is a difference. A big one.

I'm off-topic here. What I really wanted to say in this post is that I'm looking forward to some archery-related violence in this film. I've long been a fan of the bow-and-arrow action hero. It makes for great visuals and satisfying sound effects. A few of my favorites here:

Melina Havelock (Carol Bouquet) in Roger Moore's best Bond outing, For Your Eyes Only. She plays a revenge-seeking Greek who dispatches her victims with a crossbow.

One of the nice things about Legolas (Orlando Bloom) in The Lord of the Rings trilogy is how versatile he is with his weapon. Firing two arrows, long distance shots, shooting through doors, dispatching oliphants etcetera.

The greatest archery film ever made, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), with Errol Flynn. Flynn deserves credit, of course, for making the green tights look good, but the archery credit really goes to Howard Hill, the genius who actually fired arrows at costumed extras, making sure to hit the wooden block underneath their outfits. Inspiring stuff, prompting me to at one point compose a poetic ode to Mr. Hill. I'll leave that for another post.