When father invites the relatives to feast
on his day-long spaghetti, and
Canadian Club cascades over ice,
and conversations slip into back eddies,
slurred and foolish, the little poet
slinks out back, under the porch
with the French mint and cobwebs,
writes poems about nothing,
manuscripts about everything.
Author notes
p. 252
(Pond Yachts not ready yet)
Comments
1 - 18 of 18
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Seems to be...perhaps a look back...and that escape from the foolishness of adults.
Gentle...and steeped in sepia.
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i love the idea of 'day long spaghetti' i'll remember that next time i have it..
I don't know the poem that inspired this, but in a way that's good as i can read it as it is
I really like this piece
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it's perfect - really.
the image of writing below the porch reminds me of trying to smuggle books on our family outtings, to crawl into small spaces and keep to myself (contendedly).
such a well written poem as always.
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Thanks Kimmie. Didn't we all have our small hideouts?
You just got me thinking, how we had our secret lives as kids which our parents never guessed at, yet we think we know everything about our own children. Oh I hope mine had their secrets. (I know they do now, but they're much older, and I REALLY do not want to know, lol.)
Thank you for dropping by.
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I know you are working from an anthology which I do not have, which inspires some of these poems, but did this one need such inspiration? 'Twas certainly like memories of my childhood, except if I was called the little poet that is not quite what was meant, but you, being my lost twin sister know all about those days where the grown up talk was like a plate of spaghetti- never ending tangles with the ends cut off in odd places (like when children were seen to be listening)
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It's not so much inspiration as it is the triggering of memories, and being open enough to allow that to happen. If you saw the source poem for this one, you'd be hard pressed to find a connection. I'm on an adventure.
Do you find yourself remembering things you never would have, if you weren't a writer of poetry?
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OH! I do love that poem. And his introduction because I realate to the curse part. And how he's safe in his sister's house. LOL.
LOL. I'm giggling now. Thanks for making me read that again.
I think I love that poem today.
It is like slurping in a long piece of spaghetti this piece. When you get to the end it is the final slurp.and the poem disappears.
Only quibble is that slips into back eddies
probably is good but for me it is too easy to ready slips back into eddies
are all eddies in the back? i don't know but i kinda thought so though I could be making that up completely.
Slurp.
Next?
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Ya know, I read that poem and it just stopped me, because it was so perfect, so perfectly negative space, how she describes herself in terms of what others are not. How I arrived at this one of mine, I won't tell unless you want me to. It was a neat trick, though, that surprised even me.
Thanks, cv.
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I do not know what poem this one is inspired from...(I'll look after I comment here). I thought I knew but the poem I thought it was is not in that book but is called Immigrant Picnic by Gregory Djanikian and is in The Best American Poetry year 2000 Though I don't LOVE the poem I obviously remembered it well enough to like it.
I'll share it before talking about yours:
Immigrant Picnic
It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.
And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped
like the state of Pennsylvania.
I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says "Hot dog, medium rare,"
and then, "Hamburger, sure,
what's the difference,"
as if he's really asking.
I put on the hamburgers and the hot dogs,
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins
are fluttering away like lost messages.
"You're running around," my mother says
"like a chicken with its head loose."
"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,
loose, and cut off being as far apart
as, say, son and daughter."
She gives me a quizzical look as though
I've been caught in some impropriety.
"I love you and your sister just the same," she says.
"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,
"you're both our children, so why worry?"
That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.
"Sonia," my father says to my mother,
"what the hell is he talking about?"
"He's on a ball," my mother says.
"That's roll!" I say throwing up my hands,
"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll..."
"And what about roll out the barrel?" my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,
"let's have some fun," and launches
into a polka, twirling my mother
around and around like the happiest top,
and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
"You could grow nuts listening to us,"
and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth
wordless, confusing
crowding out everything else.
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Oh I quite love this poem, too. It reminds me of personal experiences, people getting the expressions wrong. Yes, I love it.
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You take a snippet of a moment, and make it relatable...I like that!
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Thank you, glad you could relate.
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Excellent work.
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Thank you
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I like moments like these. I've written on gum wrappers before because it was all I had and I didn't want to lose the moment.
Makes me want to sneak out and go write.
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good, yes, do that!
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i really like what you are doing with this-
love the consonation of C's-
i would remove the from before relatives and French-
i might consider an and before writes-
nicely done poet- good to see you writing
m
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Thank you Mary; I'm so glad you dropped by. I tossed around all kinds of combinations of articles and non-articles. I'll check again, with your suggestions in mind.
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