A signal to stop

to brake can bring you closer.  An invitation for a deeper reflection.  When you were first learning to read, you knew this.  Reminders along the way are to be encouraged.  Consider, a favorite family dish.  Or the first poet who spoke to you personally.  Go ahead, make that dish; read that poet.  Out loud, of course.

Is poetry inherently multi-media?

When does poetry most resemble video art? Performance poetry, recorded? YouTube-ing it?



Food like poetry has always been essential as well as entertainment. Now,cooking is hot. Multimedia, print & online. Cook as poet, personality, seer,and bard. Pass the herb-roasted salmon with honey mango/heirloom tomatoes (more than 2 kinds), and pinenuts. Please.

What 3 things does a poet have in common with a musician?

meter
practice
improv

A signature style gets better in the doing.
The 4th being hunger.



Same can be said of a cook – pacing & pairing, practice, improv, appetite. Now, add a dash of luck.

Do poets have a disproportionate amount of words swirling around their heads?

Or feet? Because, you know, meter. Are there correspondences with other “professions?” Scientist with formulas; construction worker, her nails?



I know this to be true firsthand with cooks. My fingers attract stone fruit (especially mangos, plums & pluots), salmon, shellfish, pears, beets, fennel, and fresh herbs. And a particular woman,
with/without her apron.

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.

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?

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.

Why does a poet return to a particular palette

of sound?


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

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.

What are the 3 visages of a poet?

Farmer
Builder
Cook

Sit down (please) in the room the builder built. Eat the food the farmer planted & harvested. Then, the cook improvises. What outcome?




The fork/spoon poised satisfies hunger. Which food appoints? What music goes with...

To question is not to doubt a poem, right?

A poem never doubts itself, saves that for the poet.
Thus, a seesaw: poet & cook/poem & ingredients.



Put aside cultural difference/skeptical mouth. Pizza is without a doubt, unquestionable.

When a particular word saturates a poet's work, is this iconographic shorthand?

A word stands for. For example “crow” or “cypress.” To what means? To which end? The personal expressed in image/metaphor. Is the reader brought close or held at arm’s length?



With food, this may be construed as the cook’s “signature dish.” Signature style? Consistency and matter of taste.

What inspires the question in a poem?

From the get go, assume every poem imbeds a question.
From which limb, which organ of the poet did the question spring?
A question (explicit or implicit) is sufficient. The answer is the umbrella you misplaced.


Which foods feed question-making? A split dish with a friend. Two glasses. Wine.