Tag: Writer’s Almanac

Chocolates by Louis Simpson (Poem from Writer’s Almanac)

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Once some people were visiting Chekhov.
While they made remarks about his genius
the Master fidgeted. Finally
he said, “Do you like chocolates?”

They were astonished, and silent.
He repeated the question,
whereupon one lady plucked up her courage
and murmured shyly, “Yes.”

“Tell me,” he said, leaning forward,
light glinting from his spectacles,
“what kind? The light, sweet chocolate
or the dark, bitter kind?”

The conversation became general.
They spoke of cherry centers,
of almonds and Brazil nuts.
Losing their inhibitions
they interrupted one another.
For people may not know what they think
about politics in the Balkans,
or the vexed question of men and women,

but everyone has a definite opinion
about the flavor of shredded coconut.
Finally someone spoke of chocolates filled with liqueur,
and everyone, even the author of Uncle Vanya,
was at a loss for words.

As they were leaving he stood by the door
and took their hands.
In the coach returning to Petersburg
they agreed that it had been a most
unusual conversation.

“Chocolates” by Louis Simpson from Collected Poems. © Paragon House, 1988. Reprinted with permission.

I started posting these poems as a way to include them in this collection of food, design and philosophy related thoughts. At this point there is quite a collection of poems. I’m struck by the diversity of emotions that food images conjure up. This poem perhaps shows that social and conversational connection of taste that brings us to share in each others thoughts online and in person best. Food talk is “most unusual” maybe because there is no prescribed method or sequence, no ultimate objective standard. If I say I don’t like the taste of macadamia nuts, there can only be explanation but no argument, opinions but no facts. I can say I don’t like them unless baked in white chocolate cookies. You don’t have to agree with me but you can’t disagree with my taste either. Fascinating don’t you think?

Thank you, Writer’s Almanac for sharing these poetic food moments.

from http://writersalmanac.org/

A Drink of Water by Jeffrey Harrison

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When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap
and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways
to drink directly from the stream of cool water,
I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone,
who used to do the same thing at that age;

and when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied,
wipes the water dripping from his cheek
with his shirtsleeve, it’s the same casual gesture
my brother used to make; and I don’t tell him
to use a glass, the way our father told my brother,

because I like remembering my brother
when he was young, decades before anything
went wrong, and I like the way my son
becomes a little more my brother for a moment
through this small habit born of a simple need,

which, natural and unprompted, ties them together
across the bounds of death, and across time …
as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds
and entered this one through the kitchen faucet,
my son and brother drinking the same water.

“A Drink of Water” by Jeffrey Harrison, from Into Daylight. © Tupelo Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Posted from the http://writersalmanac.org/

Apple Crisp and Ice cream Happiness

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Happiness

by Wesley McNair

Why, Dot asks, stuck in the back
seat of her sister’s two-door, her freckled hand
feeling the roof for the right spot
to pull her wide self up onto her left,
the unarthritic, ankle—why
does her sister, coaching outside on her cane,
have to make her laugh so, she flops
back just as she was, though now
looking wistfully out through the restaurant
reflected in her back window, she seems bigger,
and couldn’t possibly mean we should go
ahead in without her, she’ll be all right, and so
when you finally place the pillow behind her back
and lift her right out into the sunshine,
all four of us are happy, none more
than she, who straightens the blossoms
on her blouse, says how nice it is to get out
once in a while, and then goes in to eat
with the greatest delicacy ( oh
I could never finish all that) and aplomb
the complete roast beef dinner with apple crisp
and ice cream, just a small scoop.

“Happiness” by Wesley McNair from The Town of No and My Brother Running. © David R. Godine, 1998. Reprinted with permission.   (buy now)

from the writersalmanac.org

I wish I had some chicken

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Desire

by Michael Blumenthal

          Paris, May 2005

Let’s just say I seem to be enjoying these three chicken drumsticks
far more than the young man doing sit-ups just across the lawn

beside his girlfriend here at the Jardin de Reuilly is enjoying himself:
after all, he’s huffing and puffing, and I’m sitting here, devouring

my chicken, basking in the spring sun, but now he’s rolling over,
it’s push-ups he’s doing, push-ups right on top of his girlfriend,

and the push-ups are getting slower and slower, just as my chicken
is disappearing, and, before long, the push-ups stop altogether, he’s

merely lying there on top of her, and he seems, even from a distance,
much happier than when he was doing push-ups, then he suddenly

sits up, looks up at the heavens, and stares (with an expression
of pure longing) over at me. Oh, he seems to be saying,

I sure wish I had some chicken.

“Desire” by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012. © Etruscan Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2014/11/13

Happy 86th Birthday Sliced Bread! (and, Poem on the Fridge) on Writer’s Almanac

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article-2358285-0C904E7B00000578-136_634x354

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2358285/The-greatest-thing—A-look-history-sliced-bread-jeweler-inventor-celebrates-85th-anniversary.html

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Poem on the Fridge

by Paul Hostovsky

The refrigerator is the highest honor
a poem can aspire to. The ultimate
publication. As close to food as words
can come. And this refrigerator poem
is honored to be here beneath its own
refrigerator magnet, which feels like a medal
pinned to its lapel. Stop here a moment
and listen to the poem humming to itself,
like a refrigerator itself, the song in its head
full of crisp, perishable notes that wither in air,
the words to the song lined up here like
a dispensary full of indispensable details:
a jar of corrugated green pickles, an array
of headless shrimp, fiery maraschino cherries,
a fruit salad, veggie platter, assortments of
cheeses and chilled French wines, a pink
bottle of amoxicillin: the poem is infectious.
It’s having a party. The music, the revelry,
is seeping through this white door.

“Poem on the Fridge” by Paul Hostovsky from Selected Poems. © Futurecycle Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)