Precisely. What is minimal poetry?

How is it fed?

word count
stick-frame skeleton
bare-bones narrative
obsession with space?

Is it a better bed-woman of lyric or sparse story?



Consider a minimal meal, prepared by the minimal cook. Does the seesaw drop in favor (no matter largess of season) of limited ingredients, simplicity of menu, speed of preparation?

Truly, is an orange more minimal than artichoke? These considerations: do they sweeten, do they savor a meal.

To who or what are you addressing your question?

To the poem? Or the poet?
Did you expect an answer?

By the way, what were you asking?



Can we extricate a cook from the menu? Or garlic from hummus?
Perhaps, best question the amount, not the ingredient.

What are the 4 seasons of poetry-making?

writing
editing
publishing
performing

Do we need a period? Or exclamation. Should the question (mark) be summoned.

What sustains with/through time? Read another’s work – lots of. Listen. Sound nourishes. Is exquisite.




Of food? Perhaps, this quartet: land & sea, harvest & fallow. Largess invites the extra: gratitude. Folded napkin.

Is editing what a poet must do

to hear what she really meant to say?
Didn't know she was saying?



Are leftovers reassembled, a cook’s method of editing?

How many undocumented references go into making a poem?

What has been/will be

experience

or

read
overhead
told to
longed for

joyful failure
and play

Could be….




Now ask yourself,
how many eyes stir a stew?

What's the deal, poetry & fashion?

Not the poet’s garb. How a line is dressed. Undressed.

classic
hip
retro
neo
fancy or plain

Style comes/style goes rarely speaks
(of Michelangelo). April is (such a) responsible (month).



Cuisine, too. All of the above. Mac & cheese. Meatloaf & mashed. Butter/cream or minimal & raw.

Remember: candles never go out
of fashion.

Why mourn a forgotten line of poetry?

Or a poet: under-appreciated, undiscovered, forgotten?

Language knows. Remembers. Consciousness reconfigures.

Read once a line of poetry is praise plenty.



Of food: order & abandonment as in ingredients left out or dismissed. Makes a dish something else. That ingredient reconfigured used at another time to advantage. Smiling cook and happy those around the table. Like particular poems within earshot, joyful.

What does editing a poem & recycling have in common?

Where do outtakes of lines of poetry end up?

Scraps. Filled/crossed-out pages. Appropriated ink. Accounted for.

A list-poem waiting to happen?



Scraps. Of food. Compost.

Or salvaged? (personally speaking) Leftovers. Enjoyed. As in, put to good use. Mulch?
Lunch, never better.

Incorrigible poetry. What's that?

If one separates "incorrigible" and "poetry" by a comma, what then?

Simple & elegant, an appointment is the comma.



Sorbet appoints a meal. Refreshes. Pacing of...

Is poetry competition, career, or a calling?

yes
no
combo

residue

maybe




The simple/the fresh nourishes.


A poet I know says, “Words are the ultimate spice.”

Why does a poet return to a particular palette

of sound?


Why does the cook gravitate to a particular combination of color & taste?

Is waiting for the poem to occur, a poet's false gold?

Wait for (yes)
train
friends
holidays
water/boil
tea/steep

wait not
for (or upon) inspiration

Right now, write or have no supper




Speaking of supper…

From market to mouth, taste is in the doing.

Does editing a poem make words deciduous?

Fall away. In Spring blooms shed as is nature. The deciduous celebrates space. Is this akin to the minimal in poetry?



In a meal conversation is bud, bloom and story. A revealing of space. Of taste. Texture, too.
And the story, continually edited.

Is poetry a subtext of the personal?

Does the poet write to understand herself in each revision? Is poetry mirror-making?




Easter. And what construct is any holiday? Reveals/reinvents. No chunks of this/that. Small plates, bright colors, fragrant as hand-picked rosemary.

Is it too late to learn Latin?

Do words have a time limit?
Does each line of poetry have a predestined length?




Fixed & flexible. Fast or slow. Food dictates the meal.

What hunger does poetry satisfy?

Hunger is always personal.

Which words feed hunger?


What food, poetic?