The Best American Poetry

Happy Fasnacht Day! [by Laura Orem]

The Fight between Carnival and Lent, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, oil on panel, 1559

It's Shrove Tuesday, and while New Orleans may have Mardi Gras, we here in Pennsylvania Dutch Country have Fasnacht Day.

What is a fasnacht, you ask? It is a kind of super-doughnut, made with potato flour, sugar, and lard. Don't scoff. They are terrific. They are only sold one day a year - today, the day before Ash Wednesday. Historically, they were the last gastronomic hurrah before Lent, a way to use up all the sugar and lard in the pantry before forty days of fasting began.  As you might imagine, they are not health food. No one, as far as I am aware, has ever calculated the calories in a fasnacht. Really, it's better not to know.

What distinguishes fasnachts from ordinary doughnuts is their muchness. They are heavier (potato flour and lard will do that) and usually significantly bigger. They have a wonderfully crispy outside and a decadently soft inside. They come in many varieties - glazed, powdered, filled - but my favorite are ones that are simply dusted with granulated sugar. Heaven.

Fasnachts are serious business here in the Susquehanna Valley. Advertising begins weeks ahead of time, and bakeries and supermarkets open early to handle the rush. When I went to the grocery store to pick up ours today, there were extra tables outside, piled high with fasnachts of all complexion wafting their yeasty aroma through the chilly air, enticing any reluctant buyers (not that there are many of those). And if you think you'll just pick up your dozen on the way home from work, think again: by suppertime, there is not a fasnacht left to be had for love nor money in York County.

So, while the good people of rural Pennsylvania are not ones for gaudy beads, jazz music, and excess alcohol, they do have their moments of over-indulgence. Ah, fasnachts! How we love you!

There is No Final Word [by Vincent Katz]

For my final Guest Author post (already!) I am going to do a survey of things I see around my desk that are inspiring me as I look out the windows at water dripping off pendulous icicles and streaks of shadows and dying sun on the softening snow.

First off, there is Anne Carson’s If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (2002), in which Carson makes a representation of the classical text in its original language. She makes the fragmentary textual condition palpable. Many ancient poems come to us from papyruses that have been irreparably torn, resulting in the loss of words, lines, stanzas. Other fragments come to us in citations from later authors. Unlike most previous translators, who chose to translate only poems of Sappho’s that approach or can be made to emulate a complete state, Carson translated all the fragments we have. In her introduction, Carson writes:

In translating I tried to put down all that can be read of each poem in the plainest language I could find, using where possible the same order of words and thoughts as Sappho did. I like to think that, the more I stand out of the way, the more Sappho shows through. This is an amiable fantasy (transparency of self) within which most translators labor.

Carson is funny when discussing the uses to which poetry may be put by grammarians and pedants. We possess one of Sappho’s lines because someone named Apollonios Dyskolos in the second century CE cited it in his treatise On Conjunctions. The line is, “Do I still long for my virginity?” What a fantastic line! And how tantalizing not to have the rest of the poem.

She even goes on to that most remote category all classicists are familiar with, alternately delighting and despairing: when a song of Sappho’s is referred to but not quoted. In this category is a famous line from Solon recounted by Stobaios:

Solon of Athens heard his nephew sing a song of Sappho’s over the wine and since he liked the song so much he asked the boy to teach it to him. When someone asked why, he said, So that I may learn it and then die.

Carson writes, “As acts of deterrence these stories carry their own kind of thrill—at the inside edge where her words go missing, a sort of antipoem that condenses everything you ever wanted her to write…”

The Solon story reminds us that Sappho, as most ancient Greek and Roman poets, was a musician as well as a lyricist. In addition to her poems, she is credited with inventing the plectrum and the Mixolydian mode.

Carson’s translation of fragment 118 reads in its entirety:

yes! radiant lyre speak to me

become a voice

Jane Harrison’s Prolegomena to the study of Greek Religion, first published in 1903, helped to introduce a much more various method of understanding the ancient Greek world. She was one of the first to examine pre-Olympian cults and rituals, extending the study of mythology farther into the past and comparing it to similar patterns in diverse cultures.

Harrison’s words and her demonstrations of a shift from female- to male-centered religion resonate today:

To the primitive matriarchal Greek Pandora was then a real goddess, in form and name, of the Earth, and men did sacrifice to her. By the time of Aristophanes she had become a misty figure, her ritual archaic… Pandora is in ritual and matriarchal theology the earth as Kore, but in the patriarchal mythology of Hesiod her great figure is strangely changed and minished. She is no longer Earth-born, but the creature, the handiwork of Olympian Zeus… Hesiod loves the story of the Making of Pandora: he has shaped it to his own bourgeois, pessimistic ends… To Zeus, the archpatriarchal bourgeois, the birth of the first woman is but a huge Olympian jest… Such myths are a necessary outcome of the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy…

Denys Page’s 1959 book, History and the Homeric Iliad, like similar books in this University of California Press series by E.R. Dodds and Hugh Lloyd-Jones, derives from the Sather Lectures he gave at UC Berkeley in 1957. Attempting to analyze the historical basis of the epics, he writes the following about the so-called dark ages in Greece after the end of the Mycenean era:

Towards the end of this period of eclipse a single voice was uplifted loud and passionate enough to ring through the ages. On the summit of a stony, rugged hill near Mount Helicon, among the untrodden ways, stood the joyless hamlet of Ascra—a bad place in winter, and disagreeable in summer, according to old farmer Hesiod. The earliest Greek personality known to us since the Mycenaean era, he tells us what he and others thought of the times in which they lived—not only the immediate present, but all the years since the age of heroes ended. And the emphasis falls not so much on the material as on the spiritual degeneration of Greece.

In order to best comprehend poems from Classical antiquity, it is necessary to consult the comprehensive commentaries that are periodically published to accompany specific authors. In the case of Hesiod, two massive publications by Martin Litchfield West (1937-2015) are essential reading. They are Theogony Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary (1966) and Works & Days Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary (1978). West brings a seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of manuscripts, Greek and Latin literature of all periods, usages in all of Homer and all other Greek poets. In addition, he was one of the first Western scholars to study systematically parallels and predecessors in Babylonian, Hittite, Jewish, and Egyptian traditions, not to mention relevant later parallels.

We’ll leave this week’s final words to him. Here is West on Theogony:

When I say that Hesiod’s narrative is more condensed than Homer’s, I do not mean that he never says a word more than he need. His brevity is a brevity of thought, not of language… The most important and not the least remarkable fact about the dialect of Hesiod’s poems is that it is essentially the same as that of Homer…

Written language was a recent importation to Greek culture when Homer’s and Hesiod’s poems achieved the forms in which we have them now. In his intro to his Works and Days commentary, West writes this on Hesiod’s compositional process:

It is not to be supposed that having written a poem down Hesiod ceased to recite it, or that he abstained from reciting it in the middle of writing it down. With the work growing by stages, each activity may at times have run ahead of the other. After composing a passage in his mind he might either recite it to people before he wrote it or write it before he recited it. There is no reason why it should make a visible difference to our text. What he recited, however, would probably be closer to the written version when he had already written it than before, because the act of writing or slowly dictating a particular version must inevitably have tended to impress it on his memory. In the end, then, he was probably reciting a multipartite poem much like what he left in writing.

Except no! Keeping to our theme of song as poetry, we’ll end with Eric von Schmidt (1931-2007), a singer-songwriter who inspired Dylan in the early days (and whose album The Folk Blues of Eric von Schmidt appears on the cover of Dylan’s seminal Bringing It All Back Home, among other culturally significant detritus). Von Schmidt has a heart-breaking intensity to some of his vocal performances. It is so on his haunting version of “Fair and Tender Ladies,” written by Maybelle Carter of the Carter sisters. But in true folk tradition, von Schmidt invents lyrics to add to Carter’s. And in that, he is right in the tradition of the rhapsodes of Homer and Hesiod’s time. See you at the intersection of Song and Word!

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking Latkes with Gabriella Gershenson [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

"Fried things are highly popular at any celebration:  they add a piquant variety to the menu; they are nice to look at, possess all of their original flavor, and can be eaten with the fingers, which is always pleasing to the ladies." Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste.

This is really a public service announcement disguised as a cooking post. In case you hadn't noticed, we're deep into latke season here.  If you read through this post, study the photos, and follow the instructions, you will never have to eat the leaden, oily, flabby discs that so often pass as latkes in restaurants and delis, and, yes, your relatives' homes.  My friend, the superb writer and editor Gabriella Gershenson  has generously agreed to share the outstanding recipe passed down from her Latvian babulenka and perfected for the modern kitchen by her mother, the superb chef and caterer Anna Gershenson. Your search for latke heaven ends now.  By heaven I mean that your latkes will be thincrispflavorful and so light that you will dispense with all social niceties such as dishes, knives, and forks and eat them with your hands as soon as you can after they emerge from their brief bath in bubbling oil.  

We begin:  As Anna instructs in the recipe at the bottom of this post, assemble your ingredients and cooking accouterments.  You will need several bowls, sheet pans, lots of paper towels, some aluminum foil; the kinds of things that may not immediately come to mind.  If you have to stop mid-cooking to find them, latke perfection could be out of reach this time around.  (Below, the ingredients: eggs, flour, onions, potatoes, oil. You will also need salt and pepper.) 

Before we took this photo, Gabi and I had already peeled and cubed a boatload of russet potatoes.  The type of potatoes is key: you want a starchy variety.  I'll leave it to the food scientists to explain why. You also want to have a lot of oil on hand (Ed. note: Gabi uses Canola.)  
Once you're at the point shown in this photo, you grind the onions and potatoes.  "WTF? Grind? Every latke I've ever made has used shredded potatoes." I know, I know, me too.  At first Gabi and I couldn't believe it either but you do grind the potatoes. You fit your food processor with this blade and blast away. How do you know when your potatoes have been ground to the proper texture?  You listen to Anna: When you see that the potatoes are beginning to slide in the bowl and don't just sit attached to the walls, and moisture starts appearing, it's time to stop.

(Here is where we pause for a brief departure from Commandment #2 to say thank you to the god of small kitchen appliances for creating the food processor, without which we would be doing  this.)

Next, you dump your first batch of ground onions and potatoes into a strainer set over a large bowl.  Grind and strain the remaining potatoes and onions and when you're done, a goodly amount of milky water will have accumulated in the bowl. Peer through the water and you will see that the bottom of the bowl is coated with a thick white paste.  This is the potato starch. Pour off the water, being careful to preserve the starch (see photo, right).  

Garrett Hongo makes Tuna Poke [by Stacey Lehman]

Every Friday for the past 40-odd years the Owl’s Head Lobster Co has set up shop in the parking lot of the Triphammer Mall here in Ithaca, NY. At 6:45 am the two friendly proprietors, who have traveled from the coast of Maine, open the van's back doors and do a brisk business selling seafood to a long queue of in-the-know locals. A few years ago a small farmers market took hold nearby so it’s possible in one stop to find everything one could want for summer meals of fresh fish, corn, and tomato salad (or corn and tomato salad).

The Owl's Head Whiteboard

I try to get to the truck before nine or risk missing out on the choicest cuts. Lately Owl’s Head has carried sushi-grade tuna. At $19.99/lb it’s pricey but still a relative bargain compared to what it would cost in New York City or even at our local Wegmans. I haven’t been able to resist buying a rich dark slab whenever it appears on the whiteboard that lists the day’s catch.

My go-to preparation of this tuna has been poke (POH-kay), the Hawaiian specialty that hit the mainland a few years ago and spawned a wave of “fast-casual” restaurants that serve both traditional and custom versions of the now popular dish. An added benefit is that it is served raw; no need to turn on the oven or light the grill on a hot summer day.

Turns out that nearly 15 years ago, long before poke became trendy, Garrett Hongo published a recipe in the New York Times. I basically follow his recipe though I've been unable to find kukui nuts so I add a tablespoon or so of toasted sesame seeds. I also add a bit of tamari.

I wonder if Garrett would approve of my version. Here's what he says about his experience of eating this delicious dish: 

Thirty years ago, in Hauula, on the windward side of Oahu, my family gave a big homecoming party for me at the Crescent Diner on Kamehameha Highway. I was 19 and hadn't been back to Hawaii since I was 10, when my parents moved us to Los Angeles. When I arrived at Honolulu Airport, the entire clan was waiting for me. My grandfather had assembled all the aunts and uncles and the cousins of all ages and put a trio of them together in a guitar and ukulele band. What song they sang I can't recall, but it moved me to tears.

My grandparents owned the diner, and they had closed it for the celebration. On a long wood counter by the cash register were trays of nuts, smoked octopus, dried squid and bottles of Primo, a local beer. One of my aunts brought from the kitchen three long platters of a dish she had picked up from the chef at the hotel kitchen where she worked. This was poke (pronounced POH-kay), the Hawaiian raw-fish salad made with marlin and ahi (yellowfin) or aku (skipjack) tuna. Though I'd often eaten sashimi, poke was then completely new to me -- delicious rubies of cubed fish dressed in light sesame oil, garnished with minced bits of reddish-brown seaweed and the ground centers of kukui nuts. 

Continue reading and get the recipe here. 

Thanks Garrett! 

-- sdl

The Wimbledon: The drink for fans of Roger, Serena, Raffa, the Djoker, Isner et al [by David Lehman]

TTry this variant of the Pimm's Cup while watching Wimbledon:

One ounce Pimm's
One ounce gin (Boodles or Broker's)
Three ounces lemonade or Limonata (San Pellegrino)
One ounce club soda
One lemon wheel
Ice Cubes
Top with club soda
Optional: teaspoon of Cointreau; thin cucumber wheel; thin  orange wheel; pitted cherry.

Adding gin is always an option.  -- DL

 

A Peck of Pickles and Poetry [review of "The Pickling Poet"] by Jennifer L. Knox

As a poet and cook, the pickle/poetry connection is obvious to me. A poem preserves a moment. No matter what emotion of that moment (wonder, surprise, grief, love, etc.), in its preserved poem form, we can turn it over in our hands and watch the light pass through it. We place the book on a shelf, return to it years later, and the poem comes alive again. A pickle freeze-frames one spectacular (hopefully—why would you pickle anything mediocre?) moment in the life of a cucumber, or a carrot, or an okra pod, as well as the spices symphonically swirling like stars in its brine. Unsinkable pink, white and brown peppercorns, greenish-gray bay leaves crisp as clarinet reeds, star anise like tiny rusty tractor parts. We place the jar on the shelf, unscrew the lid later, and that bright moment recommences.

The connection’s also obvious to proprietors of The Pickling Poet, Alex and Tanya Radison of Queens, New York. “We love pickles, and we love poetry, so why not join the two in a way that's never been done before, and elevate them both in the process?” Alex explains on The Picking Poet’s website, featuring inspired homemade pickles and jams made from fresh, locally sourced ingredients. The name was born in one of those moments that arises when one listens intently, as poets do habitually. “Tanya saw me cooking up one of my first batches of pickles and joked: ‘I could have married a doctor or lawyer. Instead, I married a pickling poet.’”

Their passion for combining the two is especially evident in the product names, which are inspired by some of the Radison’s favorite poets.

The Shakespeare: “Dill and garlic is our original blend, and he's the OG bard.” 
The Emily: A bread and butter blend that’s “a darkly sweet and a little melancholic.”
The Walt: A tri-color mustard blend “bursting with flavor, just like his personality which refused to be contained.”
The Bashó: Pickled edamame surprises in blend, brined with sesame, ginger, and rice vinegar.
The Maya: After Maya Angelou, hot pickled okra with a complex, strong cayenne kick. This was my fave of the flavors I tasted.
The Soronji: A curry-inspired recipe with cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. “I wanted to create something that celebrated her homeland, so I went for it. Interestingly, although Sarojini worked to unite people, this blend tends to divide them: people either absolutely love it or hate it.”
The Carmen: The only flavor named for a living poet, Carmen Gimenez Smith, is an ode to Latin American cuisine with sweet peppers and a bright orange habanero pepper brined in jalapeños, black peppercorns, cilantro and lime.
The Poe: Coming soon, this flavor will feature pickled strawberries, shaped like Tell-tale Hearts.

Along with pickles, they also create fabulous jams (the color of the blood orange strawberry surpasses the sunsets in all the Mad Max movies combined) and offer vegan honey, which is exemplary.

Every order includes a poem from Brine, The Pickling Poet’s own poetry magazine. You can download the complete journal from their website or purchase it from them at any of their market appearances. I was delighted to discover Sarah Etlinger’s poem, “Crossroads of America,” in my home delivery. 

Teenage girls, hair pulled back or cropped hugging necks, in cutoff shorts,
prop naked feet against the porch.
I see them all, stuck in a sort of trapped dream,
where tomorrow is more plowing more eating more fireflies
more picking more more more.

The effect was equal parts poem and pickle. I could’ve never imagined how wonderful that poem would make me feel—riding along as it had, all the way from Queens, with a menagerie of singular pickles and jams. As the Dude says in The Big Lebowski, “It really tied the room together, man.”

Submissions for volume 2 of Brine open on June 1. They’re also seeking an image for the cover. The selected artist will receive $50 and a free contributor copy of the journal. The Pickling Poet also has a Poet of the Month, whose work you can peruse on their website.

Jennifer L. Knox is the author of several celebrated volumes of poetry, most recently Days of Shame and Failure (Bloof Books, 2015). She is  is the proprietor of Saltlickers, a small-batch artisanal spice company. You can find Saltlickers ' herb and spice infused salts and finishing sugars online, at central Iowa farmer's markets, at the Ames CSA, Farm to Folk, and in a few very cool speciality stores. 

Terence Winch's "Known Universe" isn't caviar to the general [by David Lehman]

 

Terence Patrick Winch's new book is The Known Universe

and it is now Michael Lally's new favorite book.

The Known Universe should become better known

because it is universally appealing.

Among my favorites is "Small Potatoes,"

which is what Hyman Rioth says to Michael Corleone

about someone the latter wants bumped off.

"Small Potatoes" is not small beer. It is not small time.

It is living large and dining with the gusto of a fat man having dinner.

I was lucky enough to interview the author who confided

about his writing "process," which is a word I hate,

"You have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelette,

and the proof of the pudding is in the brandy you light, the fig-infused vodka you use to make a vesper

with gin and a little Lillet, shaken not stirred, like the hero of at James Bond movie in the glory years,

or when the champagne flowed in the locker room after the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series.".

-- David Lehman

 

2017 Gift Guide: Support Poets! by Stacey Lehman

Of course poetry books top your gift list but you can also support poets by ordering gifts from those who express their creativity by making things that you can wear, eat, and hold. Here are a few suggestions.Click on the image for more information. If I've left someone out please add a description and link in a comment:

 

Clockwise from top left: Jennifer L. Knox makes herb and spice-infused artisanal seasoning blends with "no preservatives, MSG, dairy or other creepy shizznit." Deanna Dorangrichia makes stunning utilitarian ceramics that honor the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi. NEA fellow Molly Brodak is the genius behind the delicious and whimsical Kookie House. Find embroidered ornaments and other decorative flourishes in Matthew Mahaney's etsy boutique Ice Cream Cats. Sade LaNay's Silk Creations etsy shop sells hand-painted silk scarves and cards. Silk Creations. is a is a social enterprise program of St. Margaret's House, a day center for women and children challenged by poverty. Kristy Bowen's dulcet dancing girl press and studio makes chapbooks, stationary, and beautiful custom jewelry hair clips (I want one!). In addition to publishing A-list poets (Jennifer L. Knox, Peter Davis, two name two favorites), this year Shanna Compton's bloof books is offering a limited number of hand made notebooks in various sizes. Generous discounts are available through the end of the year via Square (code BYE2017). Paige Taggert created MACTAGGART Jewelry in 2003 and her beautiful wearable designs have gained a wide following. She too is offering a 20% discount till the end of the year. 

If you happen to do your shopping in New York's Hudson Valley, stop in at Mansion and Reed, a shop and guesthouse operated by Justine Post and her twin sister Lia. 

Books make fine gifts too! Here are three I recommend: 

"Poems in the Manner Of . . . " continues to draw rave reviews as does The Best American Poetry 2017. Mitch Sisskind's New School poetry reading was "the best ever" according to more than one in the audience. Find a sampling of the Milania series from "Trump Poems" here. For your copy of the book, contact Mitch directly.

 

Friday Night Cocktails with Jack Benny, John Ashbery and Friends [by David Lehman]

Friday at six, martinis straight up with olives. Plymouth or Hendricks. Tanqueray for JA; Bombay for Jim Tate ("lower proof so I can drink more of them"). A couple of eye drop's worth of dry vermouth, preferably Noilly Prat. Mucho hielo. Shake vigorously in a pickle jar. Yes, I know that shaking as opposed to stirring risks "bruising" the gin, and also that you slightly dilute the end product, and frankly my dear I don't give a damn. I like drinking the thing in a y-shaped glass with a floating island of chipped ice on top.

And then we talk.

Ashbery walks in, sees me, sidles up, whispers in my ear, "I hear that John Ashbery is at this party."

Marshall McLuhan comes over and says that Obama is the "coolest" US president since JFK. The "hot" presidents were LBJ, Nixon, and Clinton. Carter was neutral. Reagan was "warm." W was mildly cool but only in relation to Al Gore in earth-tone garb.

Woody Allen looks down at the floor as he plays Cole Porter on his clarinet. He is really a very modest fellow.

Kim Novak doesn't have to act. All she has to do is stand there. Ditto Robert Taylor.

The waiter brings over a tray full of Algonquin cocktails. Since I have no pineapple juice, freshly pressed or otherwise, I have to substitute grapefruit juice, and the rye runs out so I use Canadian Club in honor of Don Draper, as follows: one and a half jiggers whiskey, one jigger Noilly Prat dry vermouth, one jigger of grapefruit juice, times two, shaken. "Delicious," Stacey says. 

Judy Garland sings: "Our love affair will be such fun, / We'll be the envy of everyone. / Those famous lovers we'll make them forget / From Adam and Eve to Scarlett and Rhett." Lyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Roger Edens.

Jack Benny says "I'm thinking" after a long pause following the menacing question, "your money or your life?" 

John Ashbery says that "Jack Benny was my role model."

Jack Benny reminds us that he was born on Valentine's Day. I give him a copy of Self-Portrait in a Coinvex Mirror. He says, "I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."

In the works are three doctoral dissertations on JA in relation to Mr. Benny's radio show. "Anyone who would understand Ashbery's poetry had better listen to the radio shows of the early 1940s," says Professor McGuffin with the authority of Jacques Barzun on the subject of baseball.

I just thought of a skit featuring Danny Kaye and Bob Hope -- an abbreviated version of Kafka's The Trial, with Kaye in the lead role. Kaye says he has goine from being Davi Kaminsky in Brooklyn to Josef K. in Prague via the dancing feet, sweet voice, and comic brilliance of the greatest of all Borscht Belt geniuses. Kaye say he is looking for justice and Hope says he is looking for a war to visit. One of them will have to wait for a long time. Thanks for the memory, Bob. You don't deserve to be dismissed, ignored or recalled with a patronizing sneer, but that's the Zeitgeist for you.  

Ashbery says he and Frank O'Hara saw On the Town, the movie, one holiday night and they loved it so much they went on to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge and strill across it. I love it, too, though I can't understand why they left out some of the greatest Bernstein songs ("Some Other Time," "Lucky To Be Me," "Lonely Town") and it's a shame they changed "a helluva town" to "a wonderful town," the town being New York City.

Joni James sings "As Time Goes By." Here's to you, Herman Hupfeld, alias Dodie (to his friends), who wrote both the words and the music. "Moonlight and love songs never out of date, hearts full of passion, jealousy and hate / Woman needs man and must have his mate." 

Vivien Leigh says "tomorrow is another day."

And we're all here to toast you, J. A. . -- DL

[From the Archives, originally posted September 28, 2012, revised July 28, 2017]

 

Schmaltzy Spotlight / Stacey Harwood-Lehman: The case for cooking and kasha in times of crisis

(Ed. note: On Monday, November 6, at the elegant Salmagundi Club, I was one of five who told stories inspired by Jewish cooking. The event was part of the Jewish Food Society's ongoing mission to preserve Jewish recipes from around the world. It's a great organization. You can find out more about it and discover terrific recipes, here. sdl)

Photo(c) Caitlin Hoop

“There was a time when you could walk into any lobby in the Bronx and you would smell kasha,” says Stacey Harwood-Lehman, a writer and the poet laureate of the New York City farmers markets. She’s referring to the 1960’s when the borough was home to a large Eastern European Jewish community, including her grandparents who emigrated from Russia to escape the pogroms. 

The scent of kasha simmering away also perfumed her mother’s kitchen at their home in Monsey, a town northwest of the city. “My mother wasn’t an enthusiastic cook at all,” Stacey says. Infact, when she was 12, her mother “called a moratorium on cooking and my sisters and I had to take turns preparing dinner.” But her mother did have a handful of recipes she turned to, including kasha with brisket, which she took from the back of a box of Wolff’s kasha. 

Unlike her mother, Stacey became an avid cook and baker, helping form the second community supported agriculture program in the country and even courting David Lehman, who would become her husband, with challah that she baked, froze, sealed in a shoebox and mailed to him when they were living in different cities.  

To hear a recording of the full story and for a recipe for kasha, go here. 

Remembering John Ashbery: "The Improvement" [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

(Ed note: In the aftermath of John Ashbery's death, I've been scrolling through our archive of John-related posts. We've had hundreds! I discovered this one from 2011 and  it has inspired me to attempt  "The Improvement" as tonight's cocktail.) 

L to R: Chef Pacifico, Peter Hoffman, and Bob Holman

The idea was genius, cooked up by Tree Swenson of the Academy of American Poets and poetry-loving restaurateur Peter Hoffman (Back Forty, Savoy): Take eight of the city's most creative mixologists and challenge them to invent a drink inspired by a favorite poem. To the drinks add poem-inspired hors d'oeuvres prepared by chef Shanna Pacifico and dramatic readings of the featured poems by the Bowery Poetry Club's charismatic Bob Holman.  Serve it all up in the acclaimed restaurant Back Forty in the East Village, with chef/owner Hoffman as host, and you've got my kind of National Poetry Month celebration. . 

I was there on Tuesday night with camera and notebook but I must confess that after chasing mixologist Anna Dunn's "Tender Buttons" (LIV Vodka, Zaya rum, Berkshire gin, Chinaco tequila and tarragon and lemon syrups) with Pacifico's "Green Eggs and Ham" (deviled eggs with crispy pork) my notes are barely legible.

But I did capture Back Forty's own Russ Tinsley making "The Improvement," inspired by John Ashbery's poem of the same title. The poem has stayed with Tinsley since college and came to mind when he took up the cocktail challenge. He aimed for a spring-like and refreshing drink -- hence the gin -- in which all of the ingredients would be recognizable, like the "inside out," of the poem.With his combination of ginger infused gin, mint, lemon, lime, honey, and splash of ginger beer, I can affirm that he succeeded beautifully. When asked if he would like John Ashbery to sample his creation, Tinsley replied, "that's the dream." John? Are you game? 

I'm hoping that if enough people request "The Improvement" it will become a permanent part of the menu. 

-- sdh 

from "Love's Banquet" [by David Lehman]

<<<

I sip from the cup that Keats says is full of the warm south, mirth, and sun, “With beaded bubbles winking at the brim / And purple-stained mouth,” and I recommend Byron’s remedy for a hangover: “hock and soda water.

For every poet a fruit or a sweet, plums for Williams, bananas and pineapples for Stevens; the shape of a pear (Stevens), the burst of “Joy’s grape” (Keats), and the word as delicious as the melon sweet as fresh water to the parched lips of the sailor on the abandoned raft: honeydew.

>>>

from "Love's Banquet" by David Lehman

Read more at The Inquisitve Eater

An Invitation for Wednesday Evening: Pen & Brush hosts poets Elaine Equi, Jen Huh, and Crystal Curry-Vassilakis [by Kate Angus]

 Wednesday (2/1) at Pen and Brush, 29 East 22nd Street between Broadway and Park Avenue. 7:00 pm. Free

 

Two falls ago, on the second round of drinks at the late lamented Puck Fair, a friend and I found ourselves talking—as often happens when two women writers sit down at a bar—about VIDA’s yearly count that tallies up the gender ratio in publishing and book reviews and the dismal numbers it often reveals. As my friend is the director of a nonprofit for poetry and I’m an editor at an independent press, the conversation eventually meandered into discussing the many amazing women we know in publishing. When we realized that no one had yet compiled a comprehensive list of the organizations, presses, and journals run by women, we began scrawling out our own. I spent a few more weeks crowdsourcing to find more names and eventually gave the list to VIDA to be published as a ever-updating community resource. 

Around the same time that I was researching this list, I finished up a stint guest editing for Pen and Brush, the 122-year-old nonprofit for women in the literary and visual arts, who had just launched their publishing wing and moved to a new space, a beautiful art gallery in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. With the VIDA list in hand, I began Pen and Brush Presents, a monthly reading series that features women, non-binary, and genderqueer writers who read work in honor of the female editors who have nurtured and supported their work by publishing them in the past. 

This Wednesday, Feb. 1st, we will be honoring the important work done for the literary community by Stacey Harwood, our gracious host here at the Best American Poetry blog, as well as Laura Cronk’s editing work for the wonderful literary food journal The Inquisitive Eater and Melinda Wilson’s work for the invaluable poetry resource Coldfront. Our readers will be the brilliant Elaine Equi (reading for BAP), Jen Huh (The Inquisitive Eater) and Crystal Curry-Vassilakis (Coldfront).

I would like to invite those of you who are in or near New York, to come join us this Wednesday (2/1) at Pen and Brush, located at 29 East 22nd Street between Broadway and Park Avenue. We'll lift a glass (or two or three!) to the talented poets who'll be reading and the amazing editors who have published them. The evening begins at 7 and extends as long as poetry and wine allows. All are welcome. 

"A cookbook is a political document." January Market Report [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

A cookbook is a historical and political document.  Think about it. Pick up any cookbook and you will learn as much about the economic forces of its time as you would from any history book. What do the recipes tell you about the demographics of its preferred audience? What is their class? Their social standing? How accessible are the ingredients and challenging the preparation? I’ve often wondered why definitive histories of a period tend to leave out the goings on in the kitchen.  If we don’t know what people were eating and how their food was prepared during this war or that upheaval, we’re missing a big piece of the pie, so to speak. Browse the cookbook shelves of a bookstore and you learn about current economic and social trends; visit the shelves of your local library and you’ll be amazed by once popular diet trends that are now obsolete.

A sub-genre of cookbooks that can teach us about the time in which they were written is the “charity” cookbook compiled by women and sold in order to raise money for a cause.  The first such cookbook was A Poetical Cookbook, written over 150 years ago for the 1864 Sanitary Fair, to support those wounded, widowed or orphaned by the Civil War. The practice of selling cookbooks to raise money has thrived ever since.

Jan Longone, curator of American culinary history at the University of Michigan Hatcher Library points out that no matter what the specific cause for which charity cookbook raised funds, the underlying purposes began as “women helping themselves, helping other women to help themselves, helping still other women help themselves and finally blossomed into women taking on the role of helping to solve all societies ills. All the time learning how to organize, to write, to publish, sell ads to sell cookbooks to run a business and to network.” In other words, the making of a lowly cookbook helped women develop life-saving skills.

Continue reading . . . 

 

“Jewish farmers! Real farmers!” August Market Report [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

Egg farm grading room, Vineland, NJ

Surely this has happened to you: One day you have a knotty research question. You begin with, say, Wikipedia. You click on a footnote link, one click leads to another and before you know it, it’s tomorrow!  How you landed where you are is a mystery.

            It was by just such a series of virtual leaps that I discovered the rich but relatively brief history of Jewish egg and poultry farmers of the early-to-mid twentieth century, most of which were located in New Jersey.   

            A few more clicks and I happened upon The Land Was Theirs: Jewish Farmers in the Garden Stateby Gertrude Wishnick Dubrovsky (1992, University of Alabama Press).  The book captured my attention not only because of the subject matter but also because my mother’s maiden name is Dubrov, and her ancestors were indentured farmers to a wealthy estate owner in Russia. Perhaps my own interest in farmers and farming is bred in the bone.

          I had always assumed that all Jewish immigrants to America went to cities, found work, and stayed put. If we eventually moved out to the suburbs, our work was still city-based. I didn’t imagine Jews settling in rural communities and making their living in agriculture. Yet there has been a continuous, if small, Jewish farming presence in the U.S. for more than 100 years.

Continue reading here. 

Grief Canning [by Barbara Hamby]

Tomatoes, before and after (photos (c) Barbara Hamby)

Four months before my mother died, I was visiting her in Honolulu. She had quit cooking, and I worried about her getting enough vegetables in her diet. I usually spent the first few days of a visit making vats of soup and pouring the soups in individual containers for the deep freezer she had in her condo. I have a wonderful vegetarian minestrone recipe I'd started making as an undergraduate and developed over the years. I had also started making my own tomato sauce every August, and I'd brought jars to add to my mother's soup. She picked up a jar and asked what I was doing. I explained that I had made the sauce myself over two days the previous August. I ordered a box of forty tomatoes from my local organic market, and spent the first day peeling and preparing the pulp. The next day I made the sauce with basil, garlic, onions, and olive oil and canned it using a water bath.
           My mother shuddered. She had grown up on a farm, and she hated everything about farm life. She couldn't wait to go away to college and then live in a city. She had worked for seven years in Washington, D.C. before she met my father and then followed him on his career in the Air Force, first to New Orleans (where I was born) and then to Washington, France, and finally to Honolulu, a city she loved above all the others she had visited. She had left the farm far behind, but she was horrified to see her daughter embrace an activity that had marred her summers as a girl.
            I didn't really think much about it. So much I had done had horrified her that I was pretty used to this reaction. She was a life-long Republican and Baptist, so we didn't talk about politics or religion. She knew I was a Democrat, which was bad enough, but if she had known how far I had strayed from her Billy Graham take on the world, she would have been truly horrified. If I could have described my beliefs, I think I would have called myself an Epicurean, because I love thinking that we are made of the same matter that makes the stars. Also, I loved Epicurus saying that there was a soul but that it died with the body.
            On the way to all this, I had passed through a Buddhist phase, and it was these years of meditation that helped me forge a beautiful relationship with my mother during the last 25 years of her life. She loved to fight, and I refused to do it. My brother would fight with her about politics, and I would ask him how successful he thought he would be in changing a 60-year-old woman's mind, and then a 70-year-old woman's mind, and finally an 85-year-old woman's mind. But they continued to argue, and they both seemed to enjoy it.
          

My mother, shortly before she died.

  I think we thought that my mother would live well into her 90s, because she was so vital. When she died suddenly at 86, it was a shock. After the funeral my siblings and I cleaned out her condo, and I went back home to Tallahassee, and spent the next year writing, settling her estate, and making jam.
            My mother had a great death. She was getting ready to go to work, and she lay down for a moment and had a stroke. She was still working, still driving, sharp as ever, still beautiful. We all want to go this way, but it was hard on those left behind. It was especially hard on my brother--he was her favorite because he made her laugh--but we all felt it. I thought I had asked her everything, but every day I have questions about her past and mine. My history book is gone. She never wrote anything down, and she wasn't a storyteller. Every piece of information had to be pried out of her.
            This was the year I received a Guggenheim fellowship, so I was working on my project, but after the time at my desk, there were hours that loomed. I could have started drinking, but it just feels so bad the next day. What I really fell into was canning.
            My mother died in August, so once the fall came around, I was back home and it was citrus season, marmalade time. I found a great book, The Blue Chair Canning Book by Rachel Saunders, and I made orange, grapefruit, lemon, kumquat, and clementine marmalades. Chilean cherries came into the market, and I made cherry jalapeno jam, cherries in red wine sauce (gorgeous decorating a coconut cake), brandied cherries, which Saunders calls Christmas in a jar. I made plum cardamom jam, strawberry chamomile jam. Like a witch, I set up my cauldrons on the stove. I had a giant copper pot that my mother-in-law, Josie Kirby, had used to make jams for years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I was giving it another workout.
  

Figs becoming jam in Josie Kirby's copper pot. (photo(c) Barbara Hamby)

          I'd go to the market a couple of times a week, and scout the fruits. I made friends with the produce guys. When I had my fruit, I'd put half-pint or pint jars in the dishwasher to sterilize them. Then I'd fill my huge immersion pot with water and turn it on. After the first few batches, you set up a rhythm. While the jars are being scalded and the immersion cauldron is heating up, I put the fruit in Josie's copper pot, and poured in the sugar, lemon juice and sometimes pectin, depending on the pH of the fruit.
            I've learned a lot about pH, because I don't want to kill anyone. And I give a lot of jam away, because there's no way I could eat as much as I make. It's a sweaty business, one that requires concentration and constant stirring. You can't think about all the questions you didn't ask your mother, how she will never excoriate you again and how you'll miss that. No one will ask you about your eternal soul, which I don't think for a minute is eternal. But while I'm stirring a vat of macerated figs or white peaches and saffron or a mix peaches and blackberries, I feel a deep connection with something. Who knows what? Maybe part of the pleasure is lining up the labeled jars in my pantry, which is like lining up poems for a book or the memories of someone who loved you more than she understood you, as if understanding matters.

Favorite canning books:

The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders
Gourmet Preserves by Madelaine Bullwinkel
Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber
Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone (her recipe for cherries in wine is worth the price of the whole book)
The River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin
Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff
Preserving the Taste by Edon Waycott

Barbara Hamby is the author of several volumes of poetry, most recently On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series).She teaches creative writing in the English Department at Florida State University. Barbara will be reading at the 92nd Street Y on October 6, 2016 at 7:30 pm. Find more information here.

 

Stacey's "Mussells in Cider" [moules au cidre] [by David Lehman]

The birthday girl made this feast for us on a night begun with two glasses of Chateau Frank 2009 methode champenoise.

Rinse mussels
Slice onion into large strips
Add two cloves of garlic, minced
Saute in olive oil
Add cup of Bellwether Liberty Spy cider
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Shake the pan (a deep pot, optimally)
Put in two pounds of mussels
Cover.
Medium heat. 
Check after five minutes.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve on boiled potatoes.
Drink remainder of the bottle of cider.

Happy birthday, Stacey!

An Autobiography in Cookbooks Part I: The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook © 1948 [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

My mother received this cookbook as a wedding gift and passed it on to me many years ago. It remains one of my favorites, not because of the recipes though there are some good ones, but because this book is responsible for kindling my love of cooking and poetry, especially poetry that rhymes.

The recipes are punctuated with light verse to serve as mnemonics for proper technique. For example, the captions to a series of photos illustrating loaves of bread read:

This is the well-made bread about which we’ve all read;
It’s so easy to make, so come, on, let’s bake.

See what results if the oven’s too hot;
decreased volume and over-brown top.

If the oven’s too slow, the crust will be pale,
the texture’ll be porous; it’s sure to fail.

In homemade bread, especially rye,
you know there’s more than meets the eye.

and on and on through yeasted breads and rolls, specialty loaves, quick breads and muffins.

My mother was a competent cook though not an enthusiastic one. She fully embraced the post-WWII convenience foods such as frozen TV dinners, boxed macaroni and cheese, and canned soup. It seemed that for years everything was made with a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, with its sponge-like brown bits suspended in a gelatinous goo. I loved those meals.

They were children of immigrants, my parents, who left the Bronx in the 1950s, first to New Jersey, then to Rockland County, New York, where my mother found work as a school teacher while my dad worked a salesman ("plastics"). From the outside, our's was a typical suburban development home. Not so inside.

My mother was a long-time subscriber to both Women’s Day and Family Circle magazines, with their projects for the thrifty homemaker (“Feed a Family of Four on Fifty Dollars a Week!” “Transform Your Home with Color in One Weekend!” and “Bring the Outdoors In with Rustic Cedar Shingles!” The latter project transformed a wall in my parents’ bedroom with hours of furious hammering.).

My father was a scavenger who often arrived home with odds and ends he’d picked up while making his sales calls in and around New York City. The combination of mom's and dad's talents was on full display in our kitchen where one wall was covered with silver metallic wallpaper illustrated with scenes from the Folies Bergere, done up in pink and black; the floor was covered with carpet tiles in every color; and the cabinet pulls were ringed with the colored plastic inserts to 45 RPM records. My mother made new curtains for every season, some quite beautiful. 

The crowning glory of the kitchen was the table--a wood slab that my dad refinished with pockmarks to make it appear aged--suspended from the ceiling with picture wire. One day I arrived home from school and Noah, our large white German shepherd, was reclining on the table as it swung gently to and fro. Meals at that table were an adventure as one had to take care to avoid the wires while passing dishes. You could lose an arm. At my mother's insistence, my dad eventually anchored the table to the floor with more wire.

Years of preparing meals for our family of six, on top of full-time work, took their toll. When I was in my early teens, my mother declared a moratorium on cooking. My two sisters and I would have to take over responsibility for dinners several times a week. She delivered this news as if it were a punishment and my sisters took it as such but I thought it a grand opportunity to experiment. We were told we could cook whatever we liked; my mother would shop though she refused to buy exotic ingredients, like ground black pepper, or nutmeg. “You don’t need that,” she said, crossing off those items on our shopping lists.

I remember my attempt at Moussaka, the Greek casserole of eggplant and ground beef baked under a layer of béchamel. Is there a sound more dreaded to the cook than that of diners' forks silently pushing a poorly executed entrée around a dinner plate? Finally, my father put his fork down and looked across the table at my mother. “Renee,” he said, mouthing his words, “I don’t like it.” The leftovers were fed to Noah, who devoured them without complaint and in short order deposited them on the carpet-tiled kitchen floor.

July Market Report [by Stacey Harwood-Lehman]

My husband’s recent diagnosis of celiac disease came as a complete shock to both of us. He had been experiencing many months of debilitating symptoms that had been attributed variously to chemotherapy, post-surgery recovery, and an intractable infection. Doctors told us that his symptoms would wax and wane and that he might just have to live with them. 

Finally, and almost as an afterthought, his oncologist Dr. Dean Bajorin ordered the simple blood test for celiac (“highly unlikely, but we may as well be sure.”). Within a week we had a preliminary diagnosis, within two, it was confirmed by a biopsy.

Continue reading . . . 

"Lesbian" Corn poem by Elaine Equi; Dramatic reading by Nicole Santalucia

For several years I've been announcing the first corn sighting of the season. This year, the corn has been late to market because of the drought we're experiencing in the Finger Lakes. I was thrilled to find sweet corn from Romulus, NY at the Triphammer Mall farmers market last Friday. The first corn always reminds me of  one of my favorite poems, "Lesbian Corn," by Elaine Equi. We're presenting here in a dramatic reading by Nicole Santalucia.

Lesbian Corn

In summer
I strip away
your pale kimono.
Your tousled hair too,
comes off in my hands
leaving you
completely naked.
All ears and
tiny yellow teeth.

by Elaine Equi from Surface Tension (Coffee House Press, Sept 1989)

Elaine Equi is the author of many collections of poetry including, Voice-Over, which won the San Francisco State Poetry Award; Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems, which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award and on the short list for The Griffin Poetry Prize; Click and Clone; and most recently, Sentences and Rain. Widely published and anthologized, her work has appeared in The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and several editions of The Best American Poetry. In addition to The New School, she teaches at New York University.

Nicole Santalucia is the author of Because I Did Not Die (Bordighera Press, 2015). She is a recipient of the Ruby Irene Poetry Chapbook Prize from Arcadia Magazine for Driving Yourself to Jail in July and the 2015 Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize from The Tishman Review. She received her M.F.A. from The New School University and her Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University. Santalucia teaches poetry at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and brings poetry workshops into the Cumberland County Prison.

-- sdh