“The River That Made Seattle”

Last night I was able to make it to BJ Cumming's talk on her book, The River That Made Seattle at AMCE Creative on 19th ave in Seattle. Cummings began by rooting the Duwamish history in the present. On 12/27/22 the confluence of King Tide, Ice Melt, and a low-pressure system caused the Duwamish River to flood its banks into the South Park Neighborhood. Homes have been lost and damaged. Cummings stressed that this was not a natural disaster, but instead it was a human-made disaster that comes from years of settlers, and the city of Seattle, containing and forcing the river for industrial use. (For more information on the flood and to help support those affected visit  Duwamish River Community Coalition DRCC). By beginning with this current event Cummings instantly connected the history of the river to the present time. Showing that this River is home to many people and communities and not just a movement of water to be discussed conceptually or historically. And this history that she was talking about, the history of straightening the river, and filling in the tidal flats in the past, all have serious impacts on the present. 

Continuing to expertly overlay personal histories with geographical and ecological layers, Cummings shared the story of the Kanum-Aleut-Tuttle Duwamish family that had, and continue to live on their ancestral homestead on Beacon Hill. Members of this family were at the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855 and James Rasmussen, sixth generation I believe, still works today as part of the Duwamish Tribal Council for the Duwamish people to be federally recognized. This family history illustrated how quickly the land was changed, that it was in one generation that the Black River Existed and then did not. and very importantly this family lineage showed Duwamish people’s integral role in Seattle history past and present. And again that the Duwamish people are still here, still living, working, and fishing this river. 

All this to say I left with an intense feeling of past and present and that all this history is not that long ago.

Thinking about all of this and coming back to my poems on the river I was reminded that it is necessary for me, as a poet, to look up from my page to see the bigger movements around me and to realize that this river is home to all of us but that to do the work as a place-based poet I must move deeper than just using the river as a backdrop for my thoughts. And now just writing this I think of a quote I have on a post-it note near my desk from Tom Clark, who is not a poet I have ever spent time with but whose words here I liked so kept around and that is that “It’s not what you say as a poet, but how you live as a poet.”