Why do certain artists inspire a poet?

Intimacy? To see & remember in a distant blue, longing?



Travel defines distance. When available at the farmers market, I buy squash blossoms. Remember, the black-clad Italian women (younger than I am now), preparing mounds of them. I title a poem. Later, buy three frocks because of the label – Fiori di Zucca. One should wear one’s poems. In public.

How are peaches unlike poems?

Let me set the stage: I was in TJ’s carrying a box of peaches. A woman (let’s call her Margaret) asks if I had bought peaches recently. “No.” She said she was skeptical if they would be good at the end of the season. “Guess I’ll find out.”

Unless you’re in an orchard, you buy fruit without tasting. You select by eye, hand, nose, and prayer. In a bookstore you can sample a poem or two before purchasing that exact book. Folks, that’s how peaches & poems differ.

If anyone runs into Margaret, please fill her in.



How does one prepare late-season peaches? The same as you would full-ripe-on seasonal ones. Perhaps, a tad less drippy-juicy, but delicious.

In exceedingly hot weather does the poem shrink or expand?

The desert heats up; we slow down. Does the poem move into the minimal as a property of shade? Or, expand as languid & reflection?



About food, Ed’s salad is famous (infamous?) and magical as only the necessary is. The ingredients are slant rhymes perfect to the birthday celebration, the wheat-hued walls, the full moon’s signature which the pool captures. Happy Birthday, Larry. Thank you, Master chef, Ed.

What poem does the graphical abstraction of a question inspire?

All marks on the page. What marks a sliver of silence?




Consider tomatoes (in the flesh) and basil (in the abstraction). Drizzle a sliced tomato perfect in ripeness with basil olive oil. What you don’t see, gives you pause to consider it by its absence. A kind of silence, wouldn’t you say.

How does a poem resonate with a listener?

Or is the question, why does a particular poem resonate with one listener and not the one beside her? Is the anatomy of the ear, universal? Is it a matter of physics -- sound/energy? Is it subject matter? Does this question matter?



Much the same can be said of food. Anatomy, physics, taste & the tasting. All matter.

How does the writing surface influence a poem?

The mechanics of creating. Do most poets favor screen or paper? One exclusively? If you used a different pen, how would the poem’s outcome differ?



Prepare a favorite food using the exact ingredients, proportions, and technique as usual. Say, soft boiled eggs. Cook in someone else’s kitchen. Is the taste the same?

What are the 500 favorite words of a poet?

See Dan Waber’s 500 Favourite Word project. See you in the Word Cloud.

http://chapbookpublisher.com/500-shop.html



Which of your favorite foods are also your favorite words?