Reflections: Duwamish River Head

In many of my early poems, the speaker is, I am, somewhere along West Marginal Way, the slow lower reaches of the Duwamish River, the last two or three miles before the river ends in Elliott Bay, Puget Sound.

Richard Hugo

Today I released the sixth video from my project Duwamish River Head. The first poem, Man Made (a beer with Hugo), my first real river poem came from scaffolding Richard Hugo’s poem, Duwamish, from his chapbook Duwamish Head. Him and I both came to the river for our poems. 60 years a part, the same river, and maybe the same poems too.

And before me, and before Hugo the Duwamish River existed, not one river but four, with the water of Lake Washington pushing down and the salt water of the sound pushing up. Then when it was the land of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Tulalip, Snohomish, Muckleshoot...

All this history is here.

River is a contained motion to the lowest point.

When I began and finished these exact poems is muddy. Some drafts started four years ago, others in between then and now, all very much located along the banks of the Duwamish River.

Mike and I started the soundscapes around march of 2022 and I got with Brodie about the visuals awhile ago. These come from a process.

Eight written. Eight recorded with beats. Eight visuals making it available for public consumption.

I have done enough work shaping how these poems are released. At a certain point there is risk of ruining by returning.

I am happy with the results. The beats are added to frame the compartments where each word exists momentarily.

The river remains with me but I have crawled out of its current, I am away from its banks, getting lost in the around and above.

(The cormorant must dry its wings in the sun before flying.)