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Poetry and Food

Food and poetry can be very personal.
And very political.

an excerpt from Mary Oliver’s To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

I have been thinking about how we get fed.
Poetry feeds your soul, but we need food to live.
And we need potlucks to gather us round to offer what a meal eaten alone cannot give.

I live in a community that gathers for potlucks often. Our schools use potlucks as fundraisers or the core of celebrations for graduations or end-of-year picnics. Last night, several hundred people brought platters of entrees, appetizers, and loads of cakes to a potluck honoring the life of our friend Rupert, a 21-year-old young man, wild and beautiful, who died last week in a canoe accident on the Housatonic River. We respond to grief with food, plates of warm food are delivered at your doorstep by neighbors who just seem to know the right moment to deliver. My friends are using MealTrain as an organizing platform for meals to be lovingly delivered to Rupert’s family for the next month. As the last of the hot dogs were served, the cakes enjoyed, the fire fighters, who were there to keep the bonfire under control and did so with grace, were served heaping plates of that food. The meal we all shared contained love, forgiveness, comfort and hope.

we gather together
we gather together

In the blogosphere, today is an auspicious day. Food bloggers all over the US are posting about hunger with 4.8.13 Food Bloggers Against Hunger. You all know I am not a food blogger though I do post recipes once in awhile. I have some friends who are food bloggers; excellent ones and I want you to know what they are up to day.

Here is Laura Silverman. Janet Elsbach. Tammy McLeod (who even has a poem today).

Do you realize that millions of Americans who take part in the nation’s food stamp program are limited to an average of $3 or $4 per person each day to supplement their food budget? Additionally, the government subsidizes products like soybeans, wheat, and corn instead of fresh produce, so the most affordable food does not have the most nutritional value. Creating a meal on such a limited budget narrows your options. This makes me think of soup. I know the value of a pot of soup from a nutrition level and a soul level.

While I was in Penland, North Carolina last month, I met John Hartam and Lisa Blackburn who founded The Empty Bowl Project. They are artists responding to the hunger crisis and the need for a better distribution of resources in our county and in the world. We have plenty of food; it is really a matter of availability and delivery. Here is how John describes the project:

“The basic premise is simple: Potters and other craftspeople, educators and others work with the community to create handcrafted bowls. Guests are invited to a simple meal of soup and bread. In exchange for a cash donation, guests are asked to keep a bowl as a reminder of all the empty bowls in the world. The money raised is donated to an organization working to end hunger and food insecurity.”

John worked with us on the bowls we made for the Empty Bowl Project. He says the power of this project is that it brings the community together.

one of my bowls for the Empty Bowl Project
one of my bowls for the Empty Bowl Project

Great Barrington’s People’s Pantry is one place in Berkshire County where community and food come together. I worked there for several years. Our local CSA (community supported agriculture) Indian Line Farm donates boxes of freshly harvested food to the pantry. The pantry patrons receive the fresh herbs and vegetables to create meals that are hard to make with canned or dry goods. Everyone feels the vitality of the fresh food in the pantry, the produce smells good and looks beautiful. Here is a link to Share the Bounty, the program that connects farms to families in need in Berkshire County.

Charity is not enough. The only way for hunger to be eliminated in America is if policies change, so it’s important we make our voices heard. How about you? Have you ever been hungry and without resource? Would you like to learn more?

Here is where you can learn more about The Empty Bowl Project.

Here is where you can send a letter to Congress to ask them to support anti-hunger legislation. This will take you 30 seconds. The more letters we submit, the better.

Watch this video. Arrange to see the movie in a theater near you or on demand, at home.

And cherish the next moment you have to share a meal with someone who is hungry. Like Mary Oliver’s begging bowl, let your plenty nourish someone else’s need, whether with soup, poetry or your sweet company.

Thanks to everyone across the web bringing attention to this very important issue.
Be well.
With love,
S

Getting Personal with Poem for the One World by Mary Oliver

photo by Kai Nicholson Reed
photo by Kai Nicholson Reed

This is the poem I have taken in to my heart.
Perhaps you will take this one in too?
You never know when a poem, spoken spontaneously, will lead to more magic in your day.

Poem of the One world

by Mary Oliver

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

“Poem of the One world” by Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings. © The Penguin Press, 2012.

This week I will share with you how this poem has gotten personal with me.
For starters though, that gorgeous photograph is taken by my friend Kai, who I have known since he was a little Kai.
He introduced me to a horned lark on fine April day out on Cape Cod and I have never forgotten that gift.
More on this story later this week.
Until then, please subscribe to Laundry Line Divine so you don’t miss a post.
With love and thanks,
Suzi

Getting Personal with Poetry on Laundry Line Divine.

We need poetry.
You may not realize this, but printed on your chart of minimum daily requirements, there is an entry for poetry.
Have you been taking in any poetry lately?
Did you have my Mom for a 6th grade teacher, who had you memorizing poems all year long?

As my sweet angel poet Myra Shapiro says,

I must have poetry in my life.

All April I will be giving you some juicy ways to add poetry to your diet.
April, in case you were distracted by all the other flags flying this month,
is National Poetry Month.
And, here on Laundry Line Divine, we will be getting personal with poetry.

I will share with you some of my favorite poems.
And I will give you some stories of how poetry keeps showing up in my life, these offerings of delicious wonder that spark my mind and connect my heart and spirit to the present. A poem can do that. Such a small spare thing packs quite a wallop of nutrition to your body, mind and spirit.

Whether you are on the subway:

Or walking down the street in Glen’s Falls, NY:

Poetry shows up.
Poetry likes to have a little bit of space around and within it. Poems supply oxygen for the soul.
And, poetry sings in a language just beyond our daily speech.
I like to find poems that feel they were written for me, they answer some unspoken question I have been mulling over.
And, I love to kidnap poetry. My teacher and friend, Paulus Berensohn does this with his friend Mary Oliver’s poetry. Here is a story about kidnapping poetry.

You gotta get those poetry nutrients somehow, right? (Kidnapping is okay, as long as it is poetry. Not the actual poets.)

In Berkshire County, you can do this with your kids on Berkshire Family Focus.
If you are near Phoenix, my friend Tammy McLeod has a great list of suggestions here. You should look at them whether you live there or not. Great list. ( like writing a poem in chalk on a sidewalk where others will see it. #guerillapoetry)
My friend Michelle Aldredge posts a poem every Sunday here.

Here is the poem I am ingesting this month.

How about you?
What poems nourish you?
If you haven’t ingested any poetry lately, what would do for you?
Maya Angelou?
Lorna Crozier?
Naomi Shihab Nye?

Do tell.
Love, S

Alana Chernila is Queen of Her Own Heart : On Local Berkshire Wonders

On this last day of July, I have to tell you that over in the Out of the Mouths of Babes blog series II department of this website, you will find Alana Chernila emerging from her writing room to talk about what happens for her in there.

Alana is a superstar here in the Berkshires. The streets are peppered with stars such as she, but Alana persists in imbuing her own brand of sparkle and genius in to everything she does. Alana is one of our Selectpeople, working with our Town Manager on getting our little town to work smarter. Alana also sells produce at our Farmer’s Market for Indian Line Farm. She does many things, and does them well, but what bursts your heart opens is when she writes and reads her work. You can hear her in our Out of the Mouths of Babes event next March, 2013. For now, just head over to read her latest post.

Will Wonders Never Cease

A few weeks ago at the Triplex Theatre, I sat in the front row as Taylor Mali spoke this poem of his. It was a tender day in his personal life, a turning point moment, and he personalized the poem as he spoke it.

Remember Me From Now

If for years before I die,
I linger and wither and forget
myself, like the old apple tree
in the orchard I cannot bring myself
to fell: if sadness or some other cancer
has spindled me to breaking:

then add to that blue future
to the list of reasons to remember me
as I am now, bursting in my glee,
in love with this day, this forest,
and these trees, these dark,
and lovely trees.

©Taylor Mali 2009 from The Last Time As We Were

Here is a peek of Taylor in action.

On Kidnapping

Paulus Berensohn, the artist and deep ecologist, taught me to ‘kidnap’ poems. He once presented this idea to his close friend and poet Mary Oliver and described to her how he memorized her poems and inserted words in key places to make them intensely personal, expressive of his own feelings within the container of her poems. From Paulus’ telling, Mary resisted the idea for about a year, then called him to say she had finally come round to liking the idea. Paulus has the beautiful ability to speak a poem at just the right moment in time, from memory. And, ofttimes, in his kidnapped versions.

I kidnap Mary Oliver’s poem, Why I Wake Early, nearly every day as I do yoga under the oak in my backyard.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early, 2004)

When Taylor personalized his own poem to capture the poignancy of his day, with details I will let him divulge, the work jumped alive off the stage and wrapped itself, arms and legs around my heart.

Today, I will kidnap Taylor’s poem, to capture my day, this one moment in time. I’d love to hear what poem you’d like to kidnap and how you’d do it.

Remember Me From Now, after Taylor Mali’s poem, kidnapped by Suzi Banks Baum

If for years before I die,
I linger and wither and forget
myself, like the old apple tree
in the orchard I cannot bring myself
to fell; if sadness or some other cancer
has spindled me to breaking;

then add that blue future
to the list of reasons to remember me
as I am now, bursting in my glee,
in love with this day, the sunset and the green tomatoes, this good green land,
and these trees, these dark
and lovely trees.

Miracle view from the hammock. So glad I lay down. #summer #tree #heart xoS

Make a poem your own today.
Let the elegant hand of Mary Oliver, of Taylor or some other writer of soul filled words carry your heart out in to the clear air, where we can all draw a quick breath at the fleeting beauty of you.
xo
S