Poet’s Pantry

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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:

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This last appeared here in October 2015.

43 thoughts on “Poet’s Pantry”

  1. Pingback: Poet’s Pantry — O at the Edges | WilliWash

  4. Robert, what an excellent post and guide to anyone writing and wanting to write poetry. Someone asked me how long it took to write a poem and my answer was “a lifetime.” This post shows I was right. Poetry is about grasping every piece of life you can.

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  7. Intolerant. Wasn’t intending the metaphor… but not to let it languish:
    I am lactose intolerance, I am
    the ill wind that blows no good,
    an empty space at your buffet table, I am the gross
    distention
    this groaning rumble, evidence
    discipline
    abandoned, for a sliver, morsel, block
    devoured
    in defiance of biology, the devil take the gut’s protest
    this gouda is the angels’ song, fermented.

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  8. This post reminds me of a professor’s recommendation to create a center with objects (both personal and random) for children when they are learning to write poetry. I can see the pantry…both tangible and abstract…is still an inspiration to you!

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  9. My cooking is reasonably planned and organized, but my poetry is from my dreams and only if I’m clever enough to remember to jot some prompts down during the night. Therefore I’m not really a prolific writer, nor consciously driven to write.

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    • Once I decide what to cook, I’m very organized. The poetry isn’t organized, to say the least. I very seldom have a firm idea on what I’m going to write about, and just sit and begin writing. This is all I know to do.

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  16. Pingback: Poet’s Pantry — O at the Edges – jetsetterweb

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