The
poet creates a mythology about themselves:
Whitman’s physical generosity,
bareheaded, barefoot;
Pound in his green felt jacket,
later the lovable fascist;
Crane with his dock boys
(I’ll manage to read him yet);
dying Keats with his Fanny Brawn –
the greatest troubadour.
Whitman’s physical generosity,
bareheaded, barefoot;
Pound in his green felt jacket,
later the lovable fascist;
Crane with his dock boys
(I’ll manage to read him yet);
dying Keats with his Fanny Brawn –
the greatest troubadour.
What
was Longfellow’s mask?
Not Hiawatha – he was just a noble Indian,
with naked loins like you see in New Mexico museums.
I can imagine Whitman like that,
but not Longfellow –
the pre-civil war academic poet,
adapting romanticized Native American stories to Latin meters.
The tribute above Minnihaha Falls:
green, larger-than life Hiawatha, two feathers in his headband,
at his shoulder an empty quiver.
Minnehaha has just jumped into his arms
and he holds her strongly around the knees,
her mocassins swinging demurely at his waist.
Not Hiawatha – he was just a noble Indian,
with naked loins like you see in New Mexico museums.
I can imagine Whitman like that,
but not Longfellow –
the pre-civil war academic poet,
adapting romanticized Native American stories to Latin meters.
The tribute above Minnihaha Falls:
green, larger-than life Hiawatha, two feathers in his headband,
at his shoulder an empty quiver.
Minnehaha has just jumped into his arms
and he holds her strongly around the knees,
her mocassins swinging demurely at his waist.
I
don’t know if Hiawatha abandoned Minnehaha
for his real love, Nokomis,
whose wigwam famously stood
by the shores of Gitche Gumee,
by the shining Big-Sea-Water.
Nokomis was the Daughter of the Moon,
and the pine trees behind her wigwam were black and gloomy.
And the fir trees had cones upon them;
and the water beat,
the clear and sunny water;
Gitche Gumee itself beat.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle –
and now I get it that Nokomis, the Daughter of the Moon,
was an old woman who found Hiawatha and nursed him,
a bit like Moses and the Bullrushers,
bedded soft in moss and rushes,
safely bound with reindeer sinews.
So Minnehaha has nothing to worry about.
When baby Hiawatha would cry, witty old Nokomis would say,
Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!
And she called him her little owlet!
Who is this, that lights the wigwam?
With his great eyes lights the wigwam?
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!
How could poetry be better than this?for his real love, Nokomis,
whose wigwam famously stood
by the shores of Gitche Gumee,
by the shining Big-Sea-Water.
Nokomis was the Daughter of the Moon,
and the pine trees behind her wigwam were black and gloomy.
And the fir trees had cones upon them;
and the water beat,
the clear and sunny water;
Gitche Gumee itself beat.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle –
and now I get it that Nokomis, the Daughter of the Moon,
was an old woman who found Hiawatha and nursed him,
a bit like Moses and the Bullrushers,
bedded soft in moss and rushes,
safely bound with reindeer sinews.
So Minnehaha has nothing to worry about.
When baby Hiawatha would cry, witty old Nokomis would say,
Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!
And she called him her little owlet!
Who is this, that lights the wigwam?
With his great eyes lights the wigwam?
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!
How did Longfellow do it without a strong persona? -
barefoot boy with cheek of tan,
R.S. the Alaskan frontier's man,
Emily, the nervous old spinster.
With his sweet native-American themes,
Henry Wadsworth didn’t need a personality.
Lovely Minnehaha,
noble Hiawatha with his erect feathers and empty quiver,
standing in the stream above the falls,
the beautiful Minnehaha Falls.
