More Footsie
Last month's Whither Zither brought in more email than usual. The column was about versification generally, and zeroed in on various "metric feet" designations in the world of poetry. Mostly I talked about the dactylic foot, with it's three syllable (stressed - unstressed - unstressed) waltz-like form, and the trochaic foot, with its two syllable (stressed - unstressed), polka-like form. I mentioned that the name of that notoriously wild poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was what got me started thinking about this, because her name was such a great example of the dactylic foot (at least until you get to the last syllable). Anyway, I received emails bouncing off the subject at various intriguing angles. Pacific Northwest songwriter Zeke Hoskin emailed this:
I met a sweet poet one day
And suggested a roll in the hay
But she replied, frowning:
"I'm E. Barrett Browning,
Not Edna St Vincent Millay"
From Judy Rose, the beloved host emeritus of Wisconsin Public Radio's Simply Folk, I was sent this poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which she says she memorized years ago:
Metrical Feet -- A Lesson for a Boy
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl's trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long.
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride --
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer.
I heard again from my author-songwriter pal Rob Lopresti in Bellingham
WA, who introduced me to the "Higgledy Piggledy" verse
form. Here's his example, which is a Higgledy Piggledy movie review,
..."The only entry I ever got published in the New York Magazine
contest:"
Higgledy Piggledy
Mariel Hemingway
Asked Woody Allen to
Take her to bed
but he replied to her
Undiplomatic'ly
"I'll take 'Manhattan'
And Keaton instead.
What exactly are the rules for a Higgledy Piggledy? I Googled and found the website of Roger Robison, who must be a fabulous biology teacher. Among other learning tools, he has written poems with biology subjects in various forms, including the Higgledy Piggledy. And now a biology example by Mr. Robison:
Alimentary, Watson
Higgledy-Piggledy
Taenia solim
Tapeworm that lives within
Pigs and man, too
Dies from a remedy
Pharmacological:
Male fern's the Rx for
What's eating you
This verse form was invented in the mid sixties by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal (some sources say also John Hollander). The main components: Two stanzas, each stanza having four lines (so the whole poem has eight lines total). Each stanza begins with three lines, each containing two dactyls, which is called "dactylic dimeter." In other words, the first three lines each go like this: "BUM ta ta, BUM ta ta." Then the fourth line of each stanza has one dactyl followed by a single accent. So each of the two stanzas is like this:
BUM ta ta, BUM ta ta
BUM ta ta, BUM ta ta
BUM ta ta, BUM ta ta
BUM ta ta, BUM.
More rules, which seem to be broken now
and then:
The very first line of the first stanza is nonsense, usually the
phrase "Higgledy Piggledy." The SECOND line of the first
stanza is usually someone's name, which must fit the meter. See
Rob Lopresti's "Mariel Hemmingway," above. The last
line of the first stanza should rhyme with the last line of the
second stanza. In other words, line four of the poem should rhyme
with line eight of the poem. As a final gimmick (though some say
there are yet more rules), the second line of the second stanza
(the sixth line of the poem) should be composed entirely of one
dactylic-dimeter word, like Mr. Lopresti's "Undiplomatic'ly",
or Mr. Robson's "Pharmacological."
To recap, here's Roger Robison's self-referential poem describing its own form:
Higgledy-Piggledy
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don't have the time.
Incidentally, Mr. Robson warned me: "If you try writing them yourself, I must warn you that they are addictive." He told me that this morning, and I'm already in trouble.
There are quite a few sites online for the double-dactyl, or the Higgledy Piggledy, as you might imagine. Have a Google. I'm looking for evidence of songs having been written with this lyric form. If I don't find any, I'm going to write one. Anyone know of any?
In other related epistles, a few people wrote questioning the confidence with which I pigeonholed names as being trochaic (ING-red BERG-man) or dactylic (JEN-nif-fer AN-is-ton), because they can be pronounced in various ways. Longtime pal of Whither Zither, Phylis Noble, points out, "Imagine the MC on Oscar night calling out the name in circus style, 'ING-RED BERGman.' Not all trochaic. What I hear in my addled brain is spondee-trochaic." ("Spondee" is two accented syllables, like "DOWN, FANG!") Well, she's absolutely right. Despite all these high falutin' words, technically it comes down to how the name, or the line, is accented when spoken, and that can be very individual. There is a town in Wisconsin spelled Berlin but pronounced as being trochaic (BUR-lin) as compared with Berlin, Germany, which is pronounced as being iambic (bur-LIN). And if it won an Oscar, either town would probably be a spondee (BUR! LIN!) for the night. So, as with most other episodes of Whither Zither, it all comes down to complete confusion in the end.
Thanks...
Special thanks to Zeke Hoskin,
Judy Rose, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rob Lopresti, Roger Robison,
and Phylis Noble for their help with this episode!