At the core is poetry always visual?

Why? Because poetry is forged from language and language is visual. The obvious, calligraphy. Letters shape space.

What if, the poet uses a preponderance of vowel? Or has a predilection to upright letters (like “t” & “h”) or curves (mind your “p’s” & “b’s”). And of vowels, mostly curves.



What’s straightforward/what’s cursive or fanciful in food? Carrots & eggplant. Meatballs & shoestring potatoes.

Page poems aren't an accommodation of line only, are they?

Words accommodate shape/space. Sculptured. Sound. Architecture.




Food accommodates the necessary & unexpected. Activates taste buds.

What influences a poet's cache of frequently used words?

Season
Reading
Other art forms
Criticism
Workshops
Degree-getting
Laziness
Age


What references a cook’s repertoire?

See above. Also add “ing” to the first word on the list: thanks.

Is the ripe inescapable in a poem?

Intrinsically, does the poet reach for the seasonally ripe whether fruit/vegetable, length of light, and weather?




Food is necessary for the poet – energy & fodder. Have you noticed, this season peaches have been inspirational.

Is sound a poem's plotless narrative?

Yup.


Intrinsically, food is sound. In the preparation. In the taking.

Does the writing differ when a poet is pulling together a book?

Singular & plural. Writing an individual poem or working on a project.


Consider the signature dish vs. an entire meal. Ingredients don’t different. But the presentation does. Outcome, too.

Does a poem establish a relationship with the reader?

When successful. What follows: affection/good will, instruction & wise counsel, healthy boundaries, the look within & beyond. A hardy seed beyond judgment or expectation.



Mouths & ears ripe with personal predilections. Some can’t abide okra or pretzel. Others revel. Regardless, conversation immanent. Clear windows.

Why do some poems end before they do?

What is it about the tangible weight an ending gives the poem?

Is it foundation? Or a well-paned window?


When figs are fresh, they are the perfect end to a meal, pared with cheese. As well as a swell beginning to an evening.

Does the poem truly come from a poet?

Or is the holder of the pen a rod for lightning or divination? Or the conveyance of gestation? Let’s assume a poem comes from a poet. Therefore, is a poem composed of a similar percentage of water (99+%)?


Of food fragile the egg & steadfast. Convenient container for the wait. Yellow, too, optimistic.

What were you thinking on the eve of publishing your first book of poetry?

What food did you prepare? With who was the picnic shared?


Poetry & food inseparable as only a circle.

Friday 13th. Auspicious. Is poetry inherently suspicious?

Perhaps, need for certain pen/particular journal. Time of day. Circumstance. Confluence of sky/stars. Geography: being home. Away.



How do you judge fruit without a taste? What is ripe without the mouth?

A poem is recognized by form, right?

A mirror recognizes a face by its changes, although the viewer may not.


A meal is taken by collaboration. What is form to food? Or food to form?

When the word isn't right, is the poem unfinished or waiting?

Stalled train. Is the journey derailed. What is temporary?



Dinner guests late. The meal won’t wait.

What keeps poetry being poetry?

Is it the glue of voice? Symbol? Habit? Tangible mechanism or the invisible?




The meal remembered is more than food.

Like Cezanne's apples is a poem an approximation?

Speak of symbol, metaphor, of iconographic thumbprint. Cezanne, apple,red. All standing for in/out of self.




Think, rosemary. Remembrance approximating the harvester’s hand. And the cook’s.

Is poetry hopeful?

Made by human hand, of course, hopeful. Also, common & comedic.



In food, carrots are hopeful; potatoes, common. The comedic is grasped by Buddha’s hand. All of interest, though no fixings for suitable stew.