The Community Life Poem
1. Richard Hugo is most well-known for making the small towns and communities of Montana into characters in their own rights. He has a particular knack for honing in on the eccentricities of people in a town and bringing their foibles to light as the stuff of high drama. This, however, can be done with any group or community providing that the life stories gathered within the collective possess the required pathos to make them sufficiently interesting.
2. Similarly, Sherman Alexie makes the Spokane Indian Reservation into a character which seems to be bedraggled yet enduring. Over the long haul, these kinds of "characters" are humane and affirming. The sheer rush of life in its all-encompassing should overtake the reader.
3.One doesn't always need to portray the events of the despairing and down-and-out. Sometimes the rather ordinary obstacles of a group are just as compelling.
4. In order for this kind of poem to work, the author has to be familiar with the details of several life stories within the group that, taken as a whole, will color the collective as one with a certain emotional content.
This assignment is worth one point.
Examples:
1. The Church on Comiaken Hill—Richard Hugo
2. Death of the Kapowsin Tavern—Richard Hugo
3. Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg—Richard Hugo
6. A Reservation Table of the Elements—Sherman Alexie