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? The pantry’s contents.
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 last appeared here in July 2017.
awesome post!
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Thank you.
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Well stocked, indeed.
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A little of this, a little of that…
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Wonderful essay! Hah, think I left that bucketful of patience out of my pantry! Your sliver of the world is a feast for the soul. Thanks, Bob.
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Phenomenal…
Read my poems also at http://trzing.com
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Thank you! I’m be sure to read your poems.
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Love this Robert – could relate to the poetry cupboard (not quite the cook you are.)
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The more I have to work with, the better off I am. 🙂
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Very very good. A well-stocked pantry helps us understand and express what’s eating at us. Helps us connect to others with the same hungers and the same gnawing whatever. Helps us in many, many ways. Helps us share bread for the journey.
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Thanks, Chris. In this case, more is better!
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❤
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Thank you!
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somebody ate the plums…and I was saving them for breakfast!
The most tantalizing phrase in this totally tantalizing piece is:
“dog biscuits and dirty socks”
what a delightful title for a chapbook and of course the title poem in it.
… it would by necessity contain monkey wrenches
and salvaged remnants of unspoken words.
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You must guard your plums!
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Yes, monkey wrenches and word remnants are necessary, too!
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We stand in the kitchen with you. My Dad specialised in putting whatever was to hand in his bread pudding. Galloway’s Cough Syrup was not wholly successful 🙂
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Ew. Cough syrup. Enough said. 🙂
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Mum stopped him from using boot polish for colouring 🙂
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Now that would be, uh, interesting…
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I can identify with your writing process. It is both amazing and intriguing to see where these thoughts come from before they are written.
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My process would seem very odd to some, but it’s mine. 🙂
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Something new for me..as I don’t spend much time in cooking..but you made it seem like a poetry.
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I find the processes similar, and really do enjoy sharing what I’ve produced.
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Food too 🙂
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🙂
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One bucket full of patience and another bucket empty, awaiting mopped-up of distractions (frequent emptying helpful) …
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I need a barrel of patience!
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