Lumpy pudding
Judging a poem is like judging a pudding or a machine. One demands that it work. Poetry succeeds because all or most of what is said or implied is relevant; what is irrelevant has been excluded, like lumps from pudding and 'bugs' from machinery. (Wimsatt & Beardsley)
Here we celebrate the excluded, lumpy parts of the pudding!
The Elders at the Falls by Ursula K. Le Guin
In 1958 a dam was completed below the great falls of the Columbia River at Celilo, where for thousands of years there had been a town, and, when the salmon came up the river to spawn, a great fishery and meeting place for peoples from all over the region.
I heard this story.
They stood all day with their backs turned.
They stood there just above the river
all the long day with their backs turned
to what was happening.
Like the chorus in ancient tragedies,
not the heroes but the old people
who do not see the battle,
the sacrifice, the murder,
they stood and listened to the messenger,
the voice that tells the story.
The voice they listened to
that had spoken all their lives
and all the lives before them
telling its story, their story, that great voice
Celilo
grew smaller, became less,
became quieter,
all day, until
at twilight
it was silent.
(Photo: Benjamin Reed, 2009)
