The practical advantage of that attitude is that I try to be easygoing about accepting other people's edits to my poems, or even typos in reproduction. Poems aren't cars; you can't ding their bodywork or crack their glass. Poems are clouds you get to ride for a little while, if you're lucky. Then the vapor yields to rain. Then you start over.
All of which is to say that I revise freely, sometimes heavily, as part of a poem's journey from draft to magazine publication to appearing in a book. I published a variation on this poem in 2013 via the southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy. Same title. But when I hunkered down with history--one of the central organizing principles of this new collection--I wanted to adjust the focus. The result feels like a new poem.
Heirloom
Lo,
twelve children born to a woman named Thankful
in
Nampa, by the border between Idaho
and
Oregon. Lo, two brothers drive to Miami
not
knowing if their plan will work.
Lo,
what were once waste scraps fed to the cows
now
repackaged—the fry shavings sliced, spiced, and oiled.
Lo,
a chef at the Fountainebleau takes the bribe.
Lo,
Tater Tots are dished onto the tables
of
the 1954 National Potato Convention and soon,
enshrined
in the freezers of America. Three decades later,
the
golden age of my childhood is a foil-lined tray
plattered
with Ore-Ida product, maybe some salt, maybe
nothing
but the hot anticipation of my fingertips.
Lo,
my mother is an amazing cook and Lo,
my
grandmother is a terrible one, but on the tinfoil plains
they
are equal. I need you to understand
why
my father will never enjoy a ripe tomato
glistening,
layered in basil. Put away your Brandywines,
your
Cherokee Purples, your Green Zebras.
Lo,
as with spinach, as with olives, he tastes only
the
claustrophobia his mother unleashed from cans
to
feed four children on a budget. We talk little of this.
Lo,
what is cooked to mush.
Lo,
what is peppered to ash. Lo, the flavor
rendered
as morning chore—that this, too, is a form of love.
4 comments:
I like your poem. It is transportive and well sequenced.
This makes such an important point about comfort foods. Also, I couldn't agree more with your approach to poetic texts. Could we extend the culinary analogy and say that a poem is almost like a recipe from which each reader or editor prepares it anew? OK, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic...
I love this poem. Talk about elevating the ordinary into extraordinary.
A new literary magazine awaits you!
The Poesis Literary Magazine seeks poetry for the 2018 first issue.
Poesis - http://poesis.unaux.com/ - is an independent, international, free-access literary journal. We are an online journal, exclusively. It’s like a desert where you can build your literary home. Because the acceptance rate for almost all literary journals is about 5%, we decide to open our house for quality work but without quantitative limitations. We are not interested in porn, racial slurs, excessive gore, or obscenity. We are dedicated to discovering and publishing the finest original poetry. We prefer expressive poems that give us a feeling and affect our soul. We accept texts that have already been published, but please specify where they were first published. We publish quarterly, and we accept submissions year-round. We attempt to respond to submissions within twelve weeks. Make sure to send us your work as soon as possible so that we have the chance to consider it for our first issue.
Good luck!
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