by Deb Scott
I was discussing food associations with a writer not long ago, about how she will always pair a certain food tasted for the very first time (she was very young) with her father’s funeral.
This week, let’s not just explore the taste and texture of food, but the associations we have about a particular food or dish. Any family gathering is ripe with opportunity: funerals, birthday parties, weddings, anniversaries. Any meeting where people you intimately know are munching, nibbling or feasting will do. Perhaps it’s the yearly occasion with a prescribed menu, and the sour-cream Jello mold, frightening in its vivid greenness that a grandmother insists you love. Perhaps it’s the first time you went to a ball game or the circus and tasted cotton candy, along with an odd smell (identified much later in life as alcohol) on your uncle’s breath.
Jot down five or six old or childhood memories, ones where you might have been confused or awed by the people or the circumstances. Recover or rediscover what was served as refreshment, nourishment. Let the people, place and food stuffs speak. Give voice to those particulars and let them take the point of view of the poem.
Still stuck? You might try a list poem or write a recipe and include the physical surroundings and any people required to support the scene, but make food the focus. Let it paint or point to the discoveries you made as you explored.
If you would like to take a different approach, one not so keenly tied to the experience of food but to food as an object in and of itself, check out the prompt Jill wrote in March about food.
Last but not least, here are a few poems for your reading pleasure:
- “Food” by Brenda Hillman
- “Everything Good between Men and Women” by C. D. Wright
- “Eating Together” by Kim Addonizio
Come back next week and share your experiences with this week’s poetry prompt in Thursday’s Get Your Poem On post, whether they involve food or not. 
Deb Scott is community and news director for Read Write Poem. She is also co-managing the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour. In her other life she loves to cook and eat, and nibbles words to the bone. She blogs at Stoney Moss.
http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com/2009/07/xmas-in-july.html
Maybe not quite right for the theme but I’ve just found your blog and I thought I’d just post an oldie.
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Hi Rinkly: Welcome & be sure to check out our About & Help tabs above, in the navigation bar. Links to poems are posted next Thursday. Be sure to repost then!
that’s a good one! Hmmm, my uncle’s breath…!
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 10:15 am
There’s always an uncle with piquant breath, it seems!
Dave Bonta replied:
November 21st, 2009 at 10:18 am
I fear I have become that uncle! (Well, at least I keep my nose hairs trimmed back.)
Hi Deb,
I’ve just read through the your suggested reading pleasure. They are all inspiring; ‘Eating Together’ is wonderfully written.
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I’m so glad you liked the reading, Derrick.
I’ve only recently come across by CD Wright and I want to read more from her.
Great prompt Deb. Kool Aid comes to mind … lots and lots of Kool Aid. And meat, a lot of meat. Maybe I’ll write a poem about sugar and blood.
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I can hardly wait to read it, Nathan!!
I’ll try to write something new for next week (Though I’m sure I won’t be posting on Thursday! Would y’all consider moving the “get your poem on” post to Friday?), but in the meantime here’s an oldy. (Huh, it was for Poetry Thursday way back when.)
Lamb and Macaroni
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Hi Tiel,
Hopefully everyone will make it a GYPO weekend and just party on longer rather than shorter.
(For those not in the States, next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the USA and people might be doing more holiday-related things rather than poetry. But then, maybe not.
Maybe poetry will give respite from too much of whatever is on your plate.)
I love Kim Addonizio. So glad to see one of her poems in the examples. Mmmm. Yummmmm.
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
C.D. Wright’s work is so soulful – I’m glad you included her as an example.
I’m looking forward to working with this prompt – great choice!
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Thanks, Zouxzoux. Do you have a recommendation for a particular book of hers?
I’m trying to limit my poetic indulgence to one wordle a month. That’s like my square of dark chocolate in a diet of way to much prose that has to be written. But how can I resist a food poem? You’re tempting me to grab another chocolate square. We’ll see what next week brings.
Deb Scott replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Love the analogy!
Oh, the reference to the uncle’s breath was very evocative, Deb. That line alone would make the beginning of a very good poem. I think I might try my hand at this one…. The food provides a concrete way to delve into some powerful emotions.
Does Play-Doh count as food?
Andre Tan replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
It’s in the same food group as Dixie cups of dried, hardened paste!
Deb Scott replied:
November 21st, 2009 at 9:51 am
If you make it count as food, it counts as food. (Play-Doh *and* hardened paste *and* mud-puddle dirt dirt patties.)
Playing off the concept of “sense memory” is a GREAT idea for a prompt. Very cool, Deb!
I just wrote a food related poem earlier! Not quite the same theme though. Hm. Will have to consider this!
Ohhh the foodie in me loves this prompt! Should have fun!
Don’t make me go back to cow tongue and deep fried sparrow…
“Foodie” meets “a country food fair” might be my next all-consuming poem, with a side of grooming habits, of course!
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