Thursday, October 9, 2008

A Word: Mjolniring

At the online journal Waccamaw, I read a fantastic poem by Rhett Iseman Trull which I originally heard her read a few years ago in Greensboro.  It's called "Naming the Baby for Mark and Terra" and there is a line that reads: "What about Thor?  Can't you just picture him mjolniring down the football field, the other team parting like the sea for the divine?"  
Yes, Iseman just turned Thor's hammer into a verb.  I imagine this to work in the way that Marvel Comics' Thor would hurl the hammer and then hold onto the strap and basically be carried by the force of the throw.  Mjolniring is, in my mind, throwing yourself, without care for your body, towards your inevitable destination.
Chris Berman, instead of constantly saying, "Rumbling, Bumbling, Stumbling" when someone is tearing off a fifty-yard touchdown run, needs to start saying, "LaDanian Tomlinson is mjolniring down the field, the Eagles parting like the sea for the divine."

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