Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Charles Harper Webb’s "Biblical Also-Rans" is a meditation on anonymity, historical erasure, and the universal human longing for recognition. The poem resurrects the forgotten names of the Bible—minor figures who appear only once in passing, swallowed up by history in the shadow of more famous patriarchs and prophets. Through this act of remembrance, Webb draws a poignant parallel between these overlooked individuals and the many anonymous lives that make up the fabric of the world, including his own.

The poem opens with a list of names—Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, Carmi, Jemuel, Ohad, Zohar, Shuni—each given a fleeting mention in Genesis, their entire biblical existence reduced to a single reference. The names themselves, foreign to the modern reader, tumble down the page like relics, stripped of context or significance. Webb notes their fate: one Genesis mention’s all you got, acknowledging that, despite their presence in a sacred text, they remain peripheral figures, absent from sermons, theology, or cultural memory. He likens them to small towns on the road to L.A., places passed by without a second thought, existing in the margins of maps and human consciousness.

As the poem progresses, Webb attempts to reconstruct the lives of these forgotten figures, asking intimate, humanizing questions: How tall were you, Shillim? What was your favorite color, Ard? Did you love your wife, Iob? The shift from recitation to personal inquiry reflects a desire to salvage these individuals from obscurity, to imagine their joys and affections beyond the brief biblical record. The tragedy deepens when he notes that even Iob’s wife, unnamed and lost to history, has been erased entirely. In contrast, Adam, Eve, Abel, Cain—the mythic first family—remain the stars crowds surge to see, eternally remembered, their stories retold for millennia. This hierarchy of remembrance, where some names endure while others vanish, becomes a metaphor for the arbitrary nature of historical legacy.

Webb extends this reflection beyond scripture to the modern world, recognizing that each hour thousands of Josephs, Jacobs, Benjamins are born, their names familiar and repeated, while the Oholibamahs and Mizzahs of the world fade into oblivion. The analogy suggests that history—and perhaps even contemporary society—values certain narratives and individuals over others, perpetuating cycles of recognition and neglect. Even among the living, some are destined to be side-men in the band, the waiters who bring the Pérignon and disappear. The language is stark in its reality; most lives, no matter how rich or meaningful, are ultimately forgotten.

In the final stanzas, the poem turns inward. I thought my life would line me up with Samuel, Isaac, Joshua. Instead I stand with Basemath, Hoglah, Ammihud. The speaker once imagined himself among the biblical greats, destined for significance, but instead finds himself aligned with the obscure, the footnoted, the nameless. By placing himself among these forgotten figures, he acknowledges his own insignificance in the grand sweep of history. Yet, rather than despair, he embraces them: Theirs are the names I honor; theirs, the deaths I feel, their children’s tears loud as any on the corpse of Abraham. Webb suggests that every life, however small, carries weight; every death, however unnoted, is a loss. In the end, the poem does not merely mourn obscurity—it reclaims it.

The final image—Pebbles on a hill. Crumbs carried off by ants.—reinforces the inevitable dissolution of individual existence, the way time and nature reduce all things to dust. Yet there is also a quiet dignity in the comparison. These names, though minor, are still part of the landscape, still part of the whole. They may be forgotten by history, but they are no less real than those who dominate it.

Webb’s "Biblical Also-Rans" is ultimately a meditation on the nature of legacy and memory. It reminds us that history is written by those who endure, but that every life—whether recorded or not—held moments of love, joy, sorrow, and significance. In reclaiming these forgotten names, Webb grants them a brief second life, challenging the assumption that fame is the measure of a life’s worth. His poem insists that the overlooked and the obscure are as essential to history as those who fill its pages.

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