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: 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.