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The Legendary Hat Story


The legendary hat story takes place in Canada.

The story has nothing to do with Canada.

I hide my grandfather’s old pea-shooter

Under my hat.  His story goes that this gun was

Used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

My grandfather was not John Wilkes Booth.

However, we have the theatre in our blood.

The legendary hat story slips in-between

Spotlights, but has yet to be adapted for stage

Or screen.  Exterior: Whilst flying over Canada

In an exact scale replica of the Hindenburg,

Off flies my hat, taking along its story, the gun.

The salty brim turned up, sail-like, too faced

Into the wash, its contents scattered

Over the wilderness.  The story at least armed

For survival, the brutal wait to be discovered.

Errant hairs floating down.  The story everyone

Will have to tell the day they finally return home.




Ryan Collins

levelheaded: The Legendary Hat Story


What is the “legendary hat story”? What’s going on with this gun and hat? Is this a poem about emotional disarmament, about the lowering of our defenses even when they’re concealed or passed down from our family? Perhaps. Is it about the past, a parable about the sins of the father? Maybe. But these kinds of presumptions can get as absurd as the poem itself, which takes its first absurd turn when we’re introduced to a story that “takes place in Canada” but “has nothing to do with Canada.” The humor in these first two lines sets the tone for the first half of the poem, which lightheartedly undercuts the story’s trustworthiness with dubious claims and justifications.


The early “story” of the poem—“I hide my grandfather’s old pea-shooter / Under my hat”—is overshadowed by the grander story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, but it highlights the interconnectedness of all our stories. The grandfather’s tall tale about the gun is worth telling because of its connection to a pivotal moment in American history. Just the same, the speaker’s story is worthy for its connection to the grandfather’s. The phrase “we have the theatre in our blood” feels similarly passed down. It’s an acknowledgement that the speaker owes his story—his life, his language—to a predecessor.


The poem shifts after the word “Exterior,” which acts as a sort of stage direction. We pan out from the speaker’s lyrical meanderings, and we’re treated to several lines describing the speaker’s hat as it falls from an airship. The poem doesn’t abandon its irreverent vibe—the hat falls from “an exact scale replica of the Hindenburg”—but it does get more sincere, more precise, more poetic with its description. The story no longer “slips in-between / Spotlights.” Instead it’s ambiguously “armed / For survival, the brutal wait to be discovered.” And that four word image, “Errant hairs floating down,” is vivid, concise, and packed with potential meaning.


So, is “The Legendary Hat Story” simply the story of this speaker’s hat fluttering down into the Canadian wilderness from “an exact scale replica of the Hindenburg”? Is this entire sequence some kind of surreal allegory? Is it a story that develops on the interior, something “wait[ing] to be discovered”? Is it a poem about caricature and exaggeration? Or is the poem’s real question about our own story, the one we’ll tell “the day [we] finally return home”?



–  The Editors