In my sliver of the world, poetry and cooking share many qualities. When I step into the kitchen, I often have only a vaporous notion of what’s for dinner. A hankering for roasted poblano peppers, the need to use a protein languishing in the refrigerator, the memory of an herbal breeze wafting down a terraced hill near Lago d’Averno, Hell’s entrance, according to Virgil, or even a single intriguing word, may spark what comes next. But the success of what follows depends upon the ingredients at hand, on how we’ve stocked the pantry. Good products beget better results. Let’s take my desire for roasted poblanos. What to do with them? Poking around, I uncover an opened package of goat cheese, a bit of grated grana padano and some creme fraiche, and I immediately think pasta! Looking further I spot arugula, a lemon, a handful of pecans, some cherry tomatoes. Dinner: Pappardelle with a roasted poblano and goat cheese sauce, garnished with toasted pecans, served with an arugula and cherry tomato salad dressed with a lemon vinaigrette. Simple, when you’ve stocked a solid base of quality components.
My writing employs a similar process. Anything – a vague sense of uneasiness, a particular word, the sunlight slanting through the unfortunate dove’s imprint on my window, articles or books I’ve read or perused on a myriad of subjects – may launch a poem. But what truly makes the poem, what bolsters, fills and completes, what ignites and catapults it arcing into the firmament are, of course, the pantry’s ingredients.
Everyone’s needs differ, and I wouldn’t presume to inflict my peculiar sensibilities on anyone, but if you cracked open my burgeoning poetry pantry’s door, you’d certainly unearth dictionaries and a thesaurus, fallen stars, books on etymology and language, curiosity, a guitar or mandolin, at least one window (sometimes partially open), conversations floating in the ether, various empty frames, wind, dog biscuits and dirty socks, a walking stick, sunlight and shadows, more books on such subjects as ancient navigation, the history of numbers, the periodic table, alchemy and olives. You might also spy reams of paper, unspoken words, coffee cups, a scorpion or two, scrawled notes on index cards, wandering musical notes, a pipe wrench, wood ear mushrooms and salvaged fragments of writing, failed ideas moldering in clumps on the floor, a few craft beers and empty wine bottles, a chain saw, and most important of all, a bucketful of patience.
(I cannot over-emphasize the bucket’s contents…)
This is just to say (no, I didn’t eat the plums) that the best equipped poets stock their pantries with the world and all its questions, with logic, with faith, persistence, emotion, science, art, romance and yes, patience. Line your kit with every tool you can grasp or imagine. Keep adding to it. Read deeply. Listen. Breathe. Listen again. Converse. Look outward. Further, past the trees, around the bend and beyond the horizon’s curve, where the unknown lurks. Look again. Don’t stop. Continue.
And if after all this you’re wondering what basks in my kitchen pantry:
This was originally posted in January, 2014. I’m attending a conference and unable to tend the blog, so a few reposts are forthcoming over the next few days.
Thanks for the re-post! I did not see this the first time around. I like the way you equate poetry to cooking. There are so many similarities.
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I’m glad you caught it this time around.
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lovely 🙂
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Thank you.
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Thank you for re-posting this. It’s beautifully written.
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You’re very welcome. And thank you for your kind comment.
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I also didn’t catch this the first time around so very happy you reposted it. Lovely! And inspiring!
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I’m so pleased you like it. Thank you.
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Indeed, “salvaged fragments of writing, failed ideas moldering in clumps on the floor, a few craft beers and empty wine bottles, a chain saw, and most important of all, a bucketful of patience.” Wonderful juxtaposition.
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Looking outward is an excellent way to explore the internal. If we step out of the confines of our own particular emotions and circumstances (I’m not saying we should abandon them, but we shouldn’t be constrained), and learn to use them in conjunction with external glimpses, the world opens to us.
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This is a lovely post. I tend to cook and write the same way you do, but you said it beautifully.
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Thanks, M. The two are entwined in my life.
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In mine, as well.
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Most interesting inspiration, hmm chef Robert! Enjoyed this… lovely. 🙂
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I do enjoy food, drink and poetry!
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Definitely true Robert, and also for writers of fiction. Amazing what one little thing can do to create a poem or a story.
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I never suffer from lack of things to write about. 🙂
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One simple like was not enough. Like, like, like!
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Thank you, Gary. Thank you. Thank you.
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Thanks for opening the pantry. I wouldn’t be able to capably concoct great poems, but I appreciate some of the same ingredients
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You might be surprised at what the right mix of ingredients will produce.
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Fine piece of writing, with a nice take on things being various.
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Thanks, Dave.
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i’ll have what robert is having.
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A double for you, John!
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You had me at dog biscuits and dirty socks, but it’s true that even the mundane can weave its way through passages both read and thought, leading in unexpected directions.
I enjoyed this, Robert. It took me in unexpected directions.
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There are never too many dog biscuits!
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This is beautiful. Thank you for the reminder (and the beautiful metaphor, which left me hungry…). I especially love your reference to “failed ideas moldering in clumps on the floor”—I often consider my failures as a waste of my time and energy, and I need to be reminded that they, too, serve a purpose.
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I’ve learned an awful lot from failures.
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And again William Carlos Williams. 🙂 I do the same with both cooking and poetry. And throw in a little bit of dark dirty little things…
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The good doctor is everywhere!
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Yes, this is how real poetry happens. My thinking on this close. See my post, “How My Poems Happen.”
And thanks for liking my Ads post.
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I enjoyed your post. Thanks for pointing it out to me.
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