by Peter Berryman

June 2004

Hiawatha Ruminations

Sitting in a window, watching,
Watching from a Barnes and Noble
Sipping on a Grandé coffee
Writing on a spiral notepad
Keeping track of band equipment
Locked inside the band Toyota
Parked in front of Barnes and Noble
Meanwhile passers by are passing
Glancing at me in the window
I glance back and that's the upshot
Nothing like communication
Moms with girls in hooded sweatshirts
Little boys with lousy haircuts
Illinois is like Wisconsin
Illinois is like Missouri
Illinois is like Nebraska
Joliet is like Milwaukee
Barnes and Noble never changes

So I wrote way back in April
Maybe May I can't remember
In trochaic tetra-meter
Much more forced than Hiawatha
Henry Wadsworth's Hiawatha
(His last name is not trochaic;
As you know it's Long then Fellow)
Anyway his inspiration
For the form of Hiawatha
Came from something old and Finnish
Written by forgotten poets
Called the epic Kalevala
Which translated reads as follows
(This of course a tiny section):

Here is ploughing, here is sowing,
Here is every kind of increase,
Thence there comes the shining moonlight,
Thence there comes the lovely sunlight
O'er the mighty plains of Suomi,
And the lovely land of Suomi.

So I'm somewhat vindicated
Stealing form from such a stealer

As I posed in Barnes and Noble
Nursing seven dollar coffee,
My reflection in the window
Glazed like some two-bit professor
Lurching over Henry's rhythm,
What began to blow my socks off
Was the strength of such a meter
Strength with no apparent rhyming;
Though at times some rhymes internal
Hide inside a given passage,
End-line rhymes are all discouraged

Other gimmicks help the process
In a work like Hiawatha
Gimmicks like alliteration
Lilting long alliteration
Which is really repetition
Consonantal repetition
Other forms of repetition
Also help to move the poem
Even in his introduction
Henry mentions repetition:

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With the frequent repetitions...

With the frequent repetitions!
Ah, the frequent repetitions
Frequent rhythmic repetitions
How they move the poem forward
Repetitions. Repetitions.
Much like rhymes they pulse the pages
Oak tree, oak tree, dumpster, oak tree
Dumpster wino dumpster dumpster
Who needs rhymes with such a gizmo?

Joined with parallel construction
Repetition builds in power
Power of the mental image
Power of the rolling language
Power of the rhymeless poem
Power of the longer poem
Longer with no added effort
Longer with no added effort

Anyway I started thinking
Thinking of the rhymeless folk song
After all, my Whither Zither
Always comes back to the folk song
Folk song one way or another
And I did find rhymeless folk songs
Though not many, some are famous
Timeless rhymeless famous folk songs
Old MacDonald for example
We Shall Overcome, another
Both are rich with repetition
Odd that they're such simple verses
Rhymes would have been very easy
I believe they were avoided
Rhymes were consciously avoided
This to make the verses stronger
Maybe not though; I'm just guessing

Incident'ly Whither Zither
Number forty four exactly
June two thousand one the issue
Mentioned how the famous ditty
We Shall Overcome was written
Long ago by Charles Tindlay
And it rhymed when Tindlay wrote it!
Rhymed when Charles Tindlay wrote it!
Later others like Pete Seeger
Changed it all and took the rhymes out.
Who knows why it gripped the country
Only after rendered rhymeless.

There are other rhymeless folk songs
Many with a simple chorus
Some can fool you though, be careful
First I thought there was no rhyme to
She'll be comin' Round the Mountain
Then I wrote it over thusly:

Drivin' six white horses she'll be
Drivin' six white horses she'll be
Drivin' six white horses when she

There's the rhyme! And not internal!
At least not when written that way!
Ah well, back to Rise Up Singing.

Why is rhyming used so often?
How's it unlike repetition?
What is wrong with repetition?
Nothing's wrong with repetition!
Rhymes employ much repetition
Almost perfect repetition
But the secret's in the "almost."
Repetition's like a mantra:
Last week trashday, last week trashday
Rhymes are ALMOST like a mantra:
Last week trashday, this week trashday
I know, that's no rhyme, I know it
That's a metaphor for rhyming
Metaphor's another issue
For some future Whither Zither
Written with an introduction
Done while watching band equipment
This time over cheaper coffee
From some half price bookstore window
From some Colonel Sanders window
Verse like this won't get you decaf
Not in joints like Barnes and Noble.

--------------Whither Zither number eighty.

Sources:
Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes, Translated by W. F. Kirby, Dutton, New York, and Dent, London, 1907
The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1855

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