Dialect rhyme. What rhyme does dialect play in a poem?

The poem is at the mercy of the hearer's mouth and what can rhyme or reason make of that.



Perhaps, out of that comes the salad. Tomatoes and potatoes are related by botany and song (as in the Great American Songbook). And here's a salad to go with --

avocado
sharp cheddar
cherry tomatoes
Persian cucumbers
cooked & cut red potatoes
carrots
radish
sliced honey tangerine
black olives or green or both
fresh cilantro
pepper
lemon
olive oil

Metapoem. Are poems truly about being a poem?

Self-referencing? The mirror always at the ready? Are meals more than the arrangement of food, ingredients? Yes, conversation -- actual and/or remembered. Even imagined. Imagine that!

Logorrhea. Can a very short poem suffer from logorrhea?

One sound too many is too many. One too many grains of salt, the dish gone woefully bad. Not to be confused with salty poetry, please.

Cliche. Does every poet invent her personal cliches?

Of course. Thus or it is perhaps, the poem wobbles into being. The parallel with the cook might be a heavy hand with pepper or persimmon or snap peas or pomegranate. Thus, the signature hue to the meal.

Majusculation. Are capital letters out of poetic favor?

Perhaps, poems are not sentences in the pure sense. In the impure sense, yup. Each sentence (except poetry: see above) begins with a capital letter. What begins every meal? Hunger and then those ingredients to satisfy.

Anachronism. Is everything but a question an anachronism in a poem?

Except or but -- that is the question.


Does the cook question the season that offers up the ripe? Does the bowl object?

Aphorism. How wise and pithy is poetry?

Yup. & Nope.


A soft-boiled egg in a bowl of steaming soup in which a potato has been languishing. Yes, both.