Stephanie Burt: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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At the Parkway Deli

 

You can know what you need before you know why.

For example, ten-year-old me, who leans

on the empty cold salad-bar cart along the cold wall

of the crowded dining room at the best Jewish deli

(supposedly, though they’re not kosher) south of Manhattan:

I’m waiting for noon, when the cart

becomes the world-famous pick-your-own-pickle bar.

“World-famous,” meaning

I wouldn’t stop telling my dad how much I liked it:

green sour tomatoes that pop

whenever you cut or bite into them,

intricate as a satellite inside;

sauerkraut in three colors, like some nation’s flag

left outdoors in a storm and shredded, maroon,

not quite white and pale-emerald green;

half-sours and dills, sliced lengthwise like canoes,

curled up at their tips like canoes;

banana peppers the shape

of your tongue if you stick out your tongue,

that also burn your tongue;

jade disks with peppercorns, sugary like tart candy,

yet not dessert, and good for you. How many years

till I found out why trans girls and women crave salt.

Coming out makes your blood pressure go down.

So do spironolactone, and other

similar shots and pills with jawbreaker names

I wanted to change me.  I would tell no one.

I would stand outside until I was 41,

waiting to be let in.  You can know what you need

before you know why: shredded cabbage and mini-cukes

and sodium ions in water, and vine-ripe tomatoes

preserved in mustard seeds, coriander, allspice

and vinegar for no one knows how long.            

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Stephanie Burt is Donald and Katherine Loker Professor of English at Harvard. Her latest books include We Are Mermaids (Graywolf), After Callimachus (Princeton UP), and Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems (Basic). Ask her about Taylor Swift!

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                                              Dessert display, Parkway Deli, Silver Spring, Maryland, 14 March 2024. Photo by T. Winch

Comments

[Denise Duhamel]

This is such a surprising and delightful poem! I love:

sauerkraut in three colors, like some nation’s flag/left outdoors in a storm and shredded....

And I learned something too that I didn't know:

Coming out makes your blood pressure go down.

Brava, Stephanie! And thank you, Terence, for giving us this poem...

[Terence Winch]

Denise: thanks for commenting.

[Emily Fragos]

Let me just say: I love Stephanie Burt, one of our finest critics and teachers of poetry and one of our most astute poets. Thank you, Terence, for posting this smart, surprising, and sensual poem.

[lally]

damn damn damn do i love this poem, so seriously playful, or playfully serious, deep yet light, sensual and cerebral, salty and sweet, tasteful and thirsty, enlightening and entertaining, and so feckin smart, i could go on, like inspiring and consoling and...

[Terence Winch]

You're welcome, Emily. Thanks for the comment.

[Abbie Mulvihill]

This is a great, mouthwatering poem that expertly explains how “you can know what you need
before you know why.” Terry, looking at the dessert photo while wanting pickles is hurting my brain.😉

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Abbie (the Parkway is only a few miles away).

[Amy Gerstler]

Juicy juicy poem! Agreed that Stephanie Burt is a national poetry treasure! Such a beautiful and moving contrast in this poem between the bursting, flagrant, salt, tart and sweet flavors of the items in the pickle bar, and the burgeoning, but still submerged (at the time the poem takes place) big secret contained within the speaker.

[Grace Cavalieri]

Stephanie lives as she writes, filled with everything electable.

[David Beaudouin]

Burt’s poem is terrific, delights the senses, and shakes us awake by recastiing the old cliché, “you are what you eat” in a heartfelt way. (Side note: I just was introduced this week to the Parkway and its pickle bar. Burt illuminates it perfectly!)

Thank you, Stephanie and Terence!

[Sr. Leslie]

Great poem! Delightful and “meaty”…nice rhythm to it…will have to check out more of her poetry!…Thank you Terence and thank you Stephanie!

[Terence Winch]

David: thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for your comment, Leslie.

[Maureen]

Wow! A huge "Hats in the air!" for this one!

[Eileen Reich]

I am in total agreement with Michael Lally’s comment. It’s a terrific poem as is the artwork.

[Terence Winch]

Thank you for the comment, Eileen.

[Nin Andrews]

I love this, love the opening and repeating line, You can know what you need before you know why, love the child's view , love the pick-your-own-pickle-bar . . . love the colors, the taste, the wonder, the insight . . . I agree with all that's been said. What a stunning poem!

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Taste buds obviously get their due in this deliciously composed poem by Stephanie Burt. But diverse, sumptuous food and favorite dishes aren’t the only subjects being explored “At the Parkway Deli.” Sexual identity, preference, and transition are also being served: deftly, cogently, insightfully, and, yes, tastefully. The verb “need” in the first line could just as easily have been “want,” but that would have skewed the poem to mere self-desire rather than crucial self-destiny. This distinction is a vital signpost to what follows in the poem. From the first line to the twenty-second line (up to and including “good for you”), it’s about that “ten-year-old me” savoring various delicacies described both flavorfully and metaphorically: “green sour tomatoes that pop / whenever you cut or bite into them, / intricate as a satellite inside,” “sauerkraut in three colors … like some nation’s flag,” “half-sours and dills … curled up at their tips like canoes,” and “banana peppers the shape / of your tongue if you stick out your tongue, / that also burn your tongue.” The poem’s rhetorical change starts right after the signaling words “yet not dessert, and good for you” in the twenty-second line. Similes and other metaphoric language disappear: “How many years / till I found out why trans girls and women crave salt. / Coming out makes your blood pressure go down” and “I wanted to change me. I would tell no one. / I would stand outside until I was 41, / waiting to be let in.” That’s a wait of 31 years, from the “ten-year-old me” in the second line to the 41-year-old adult in the twenty-eighth line. But as the first-person narrator in the poem stipulates twice: “You can know what you need before you know why.” That statement will stick with me. This is a great, gutsy, gustatory poem by Stephanie Burt. Kudos also to Terence Winch on choosing the poem and the savory art to accompany it. [Sidebar to Stephanie: Like you, I miss Maya Moore, who left the Minnesota Lynx and the WNBA in 2019 to pursue a noble cause. I also read and enjoyed your book SHOT CLOCKS: POEMS AND AN ESSAY FOR THE WNBA back in 2006.]

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Earle. Your comment is also tasty.