Episode #091 Excerpt from Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko

Connor and Jack dive into the poem that opens Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony. Along the way they discuss Plato's Symposium, Walter Ong's writings on orality and literacy, and the historical significance of World War Two on the civil rights movement along with much more.

You can learn more about Leslie Marmon Silko, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leslie-marmon-silko

Excerpt from Ceremony

By: Leslie Marmon Silko

Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought-Woman,

is sitting in her room

and whatever she thinks about

appears.

She thought of her sisters

Nau’ts’ity’i and I’tcts’ity’i

and together they created the Universe

this world

and the four worlds below.

Thought-Woman, the spider,

named things and

as she named them

they appeared.

She is sitting in her room

Thinking of a story now

I’m telling you the story

she is thinking.

Ceremony

I will tell you something about stories,

[he said]

They aren’t just for entertainment.

Don’t be fooled.

They are all we have, you see,

all we have to fight off

illness and death.

You don’t have anything

if you don’t have the stories.

Their evil is mighty

but it can’t stand up to our stories.

So they try to destroy the stories

let the stories be confused or forgotten

They would like that

They would be happy

Because we would be defenseless then.

He rubbed his belly.

I keep it in here

[he said]

Here, put your hand on it.

See, it is moving.

There is life here

for the people.

And in the belly of this story

the rituals and the ceremony

are still growing.

What She Said:

The only cure

I know

is a good ceremony,

That’s what she said.

Sunrise.

Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking


Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking


Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry

You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [email protected].