Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Charles Harper Webb’s "New World Book of Webbs" is a satirical meditation on lineage, identity, and the absurdity of attempts to package personal heritage into a commodity. The poem takes the form of a response to a solicitation from Miles S. Webb, an enthusiastic promoter of a genealogical book dedicated to the distinguished Webb name. Through humor, irony, and sharp observational detail, the poem critiques the manufactured significance of surnames while ultimately suggesting that true meaning lies not in grandiose histories but in the small, intimate moments of everyday life.

The poem opens with an exuberant declaration: “I have exciting news for you and all Webbs.” The line, quoting Miles S. Webb, immediately establishes a tone of exaggerated enthusiasm, as if the mere fact of having the last name Webb entitles one to an inheritance of greatness. The accompanying brochure presents a classic immigrant narrative—“a boat passing the Statue of Liberty”—but with a twist: “one small boy—dressed better than the rest—watches from a director’s chair.” This image humorously elevates the Webb figure above the huddled masses, presenting him as predestined for importance, distinct from the nameless multitudes who share the journey but not the supposed distinguished Webb name.

The speaker, rather than accepting this premise at face value, dismantles it through irony. He lists a variety of surnames—“the Smiths and Joneses, the Rothblatts and Steins, the Schmidts and Hampys, the Mancusos and Malvinos and Mendozas and Tatsuis and Chus”—each representing a different ethnic or cultural background, all treated as if they are somehow lesser, more common, than the noble Webbs. The absurdity of this exclusionary logic is clear: the poem subtly critiques the way heritage books often cater to an egoistic need to feel special, drawing arbitrary distinctions between one surname and another, as if identity were a matter of branding.

The speaker’s skepticism grows as he speculates about the contents of the book. Rather than illustrious statesmen or war heroes, the Webbs he imagines are comically undistinguished: “Thomas Webb, famous for his kippered herring jokes,” “Jeb Webb of the talking armpits,” and “Genevieve Webb, convinced her left and right feet were reversed.” These figures, rather than dignifying the Webb name, expose the absurdity of tying identity to lineage. Their oddities, rather than their achievements, define them. Even the nobility in this imagined history—“Lady Messalina Webb, transported to Australia with her husband, Sir Caleb Webb”—turn out to be exiled, their only claim to fame being their descent from “the merkin-maker Lemmy Webb of Kent.” The reference to merkin-making (the craft of producing pubic wigs) injects a final, absurd punch, puncturing any lingering grandeur in the Webb name.

The turning point of the poem arrives when the speaker contemplates what it would mean to be included in the Webb International Directory. Rather than feeling excitement, he reduces himself to a mundane, hyper-specific moment: “the very Webb who woke this morning at 5:53 when his new sprinklers ratcheted on with the screech of strangled grebes.” Here, personal identity is not rooted in ancestry but in the textures of lived experience. The moment of waking, the sound of the sprinklers, and the pleasure of “loving the artificial rain” create an intimate, immediate portrait of selfhood—far richer than any contrived genealogical history.

The image of the hummingbird lighting on a hair-thin twig, then buzzing away when the sprinklers hissed off stands in stark contrast to the grandiose claims of the Webb book. It suggests that the real poetry of life exists in fleeting, personal moments—ones that cannot be cataloged or sold. Each blade of grass, the speaker reflects, has “its own history, each listed in the Book of Heaven (Grandma Webb from Yorkshire used to say).” This line offers a quiet counterpoint to the genealogical book’s artificial importance. Instead of a manufactured heritage, there is a natural, organic history—one that does not require purchase or validation, one that simply exists.

The final lines provide a sharp, ironic twist. The speaker, having just deconstructed the artificiality of lineage, acknowledges that his letter states that José, the man who will later mow his lawn, belongs to one of “98,998 people to bear the ‘brave and glory-dripping name Cortez.’” This closing observation exposes the hypocrisy of the genealogical industry: it selectively elevates some names while ignoring or diminishing others. The phrase “brave and glory-dripping” echoes the kind of inflated rhetoric used to sell heritage books, implying that all surnames, if framed a certain way, can be made to sound noble.

"New World Book of Webbs" is a masterful critique of the commercialization of ancestry, the arbitrary nature of historical significance, and the human tendency to seek meaning in grand narratives rather than in the everyday. Through humor, irony, and precise detail, Webb exposes the absurdity of inherited importance while celebrating the real, unrecorded moments that define a life. In the end, the poem suggests that identity is not found in distant ancestors or mass-produced books but in the small, unnoticed moments that shape who we are.

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