Blues and Rhythm
The Blues evolved from the late nineteenth century from southern field hollers and work songs. The work songs were structured around African music, verbal, and communal patterns. Later, the songs were influenced by Europen and Hawaiin instrumental techniques. The Blues is an “American poetic form with roots in oral performance and musical improvisation” (Handy 188). The blues performers would share their music from crossroads to county fairs and later to city street corners and finally vaudeville theatres throughout the South.
The Blues lyric stanza consisted of three lines of iambic pentameter and rhymed AAa. It is important to note about the blues lyrics that the first line makes a statement that is then repeated in the next line, and the third line contains a rhymed response to the statement made. Repetition is used specifically to improvise a response to a life situation and helps to emphasize the speaker’s state of mind. Sometimes in blues stanzas, a line is altered with a different word and this is where a repeated line can act as a rhythmic or sound device. Rhythm is especially present in the blues form as it is the movements of live speech. The sound and the inflection of the words create the rhythm of the poem. It is important to listen to how the voice is employed when analyzing rhythm. Specifically, rhythm is used in Raymond R. Patterson’s poem, “Computer Blues” to help the narrator place their emphasis on what is happening to the computer in this poem.
In “Computer Blues” the narrator seems to be dealing with a computer that is having a lot of trouble. In the second stanza of the poem the lines read, “But that old computer moaned,/ That old computer groaned and cried./ That old computer moaned, / It just groaned and cried./ (Patterson 197). The narrator is describing what the computer is doing as it seems to be malfunctioning. It is interesting how Patterson describes the computer with human emotions but this also makes it easier to understand what is going on. The repetition of the words “moaned”, “groaned”, and “cried” put a lot of emphasis on the situation. There is rhythm displayed here as the same words are used/repeated but there are changes made in each line. The narrator keeps describing how the computer is not working and the use of the repeated words and changes throughout the lines create this rhythm very well.
Handy, W.C. An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U of Michigan P, 2002. p.p. 188.
Patterson, Raymond. “Computer Blues”. An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U of Michigan P, 2002. p.p. 197.
