poetry for breakfast

February 2, 2024February 1, 2024 ~ jama ~ 39 Comments

Good morning and Happy February!

Spoon up a hearty bowl of metaphors, savor a simile, sip a warm couplet of cocoa.

Yes, it’s poetry for breakfast! As the most important meal of the day, nothing hits the spot like “the best words in the best order.”

For our first poem of 2024, here’s a soul nourishing treat by Maryland poet Merrill Leffler. We’re looking forward to serving up another year of chewy verse to satisfy your cravings every Friday. Enjoy!

BREAKFAST
by Merrill Leffler

In memory of William Stafford

This morning I’ll skip the bacon
and eggs and have a poem over light —
two or three if you don’t mind.
I feel my appetite coming on.
And even a stack of flapjacks
which I love — with butter
and boysenberry jam spreading
their fingers of sweetness over
the ragged edges — won’t do me now.
When this hunger’s on, only a poem
will do, one that will surprise my need
like a stranger knocking
at the door (a small knock — at first,
I hardly hear it) to ask directions,
it turns out, to this house. He’s looking
for me. Who are you I ask? Your brother
he says, the one you never knew you had
or the one who you’ve been trying to remember
all your life but somehow couldn’t recall
until now, when he arrives.
And there he is
before me smiling, holding out his arms
— and all this by chance. Do you
believe it?
So serve me up a poem friend,
but just go easy on the tropes,
for instance, synecdoche and such. A simile
or two is fine and metaphor’s all right.
A rhyming quatrain, maybe on the side
would be ok, but not too much —
they sometimes give me gas.
God I love a breakfast such as this.
It gives me a running start and keeps me going
through to dark when I’m as hungry as a horse.
But that’s another poem. Let’s eat.

~ from The Poet’s Cookbook: Recipes from Germany, edited by Grace Cavalieri and Sabine Pascarelli (Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., 2010)

*“Pancake Breakfast” by Wayne Thiebaud.*

So clever and delightful! They say man can’t live by bread alone, and this poem feeds both mind and heart.

It gives us what we didn’t even know we needed.

Don’t you love how Leffler speaks of poems in terms of “a stranger knocking at the door”? That little nudge of sudden recognition, then the realization (and joy) that something you’ve thought or felt has been given voice? Like a long lost relative, there is a marvelous kinship, this knowing — a poem is a loving human embrace put into words.

I like the warmth and playfulness, the wit of the extended metaphor — all delivered with friendly familiarity. Leffler tickles my fancy and leaves me hungry for more. What’s for lunch? 🙂

Merrill Leffler is the author of three books of poems: Mark the Music (2012), Take Hold (1997), and Partly Pandemonium, Partly Love (1984). The publisher of Dryad Press, which has been publishing literary books since 1975, he has also guest edited issues of such literary journals as Poet Lore, Shirim, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. One of the founders of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Leffler taught literature at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Naval Academy until the early 1980s, and for more than 20 years was a science writer at the University of Maryland Sea Grant Program, which focuses on issues related to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. He lives with his wife Ann Slayton in Takoma Park, Maryland, where he served as Poet Laureate, 2011-2018.

The ever marvelous Mary Lee Hahn is hosting the Roundup at A(nother) Year of Reading. Stop by to check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this week. Have a good weekend!

my darling, my toaster

February 25, 2022February 24, 2022 ~ jama ~ 45 Comments

“The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.” ~ Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows, 1908)

Good morning!

Though most of you probably greet each new day worshipping at the ‘altar of drip coffee maker’, my wake-up appliance of choice is my humble yet decidedly adorable toaster.

Love this clever and well deserved ‘toast to toasters’ by Allan Chochinov. 🙂

*“Rosebud” watercolor by Denny Bond (2011)*

ODE TO MY TOASTER
by Allan Chochinov

Ode to my toaster, so shiny and clean
You’re the butterknife's foe, you're the bread's trampoline
You're the lightest, the darkest, the coolest and proud
You’re the jack-in-the-box of the countertop crowd.

In the old days you had a side entrance instead
You were far more ornate as a true thoroughbred
But now you're a box with a push-button trick
You're a bit more convenient, but a little too slick.

And if that weren't sufficient to cause you some shame,
There's your bullying arch-rival muscling in on your game
They say big toaster-ovens are "double the tool"
They can brown up a bagel and reheat your gruel.

But don't be discouraged, I still think you're swell
You do do one thing, but you do that thing well
And though fancy new gizmos might stir up a yen, remember
Your name still pops up, every now and again.

~ via Design Observer (2008)

I smile whenever I catch a glimpse of my creamy-shiny, chunky but cute Dualit toaster sitting happily on the kitchen counter. I bought it when we moved into our current home 22 years ago, and it has served us well.

I remember thinking at the time that it was a little pricey, but I decided to splurge anyway.

After all, I loved its classic design, and it was hand built in the UK with fully replaceable or repairable parts, meaning I’d never have to buy another toaster ever again. It’s been worth every penny.

Continue reading →

“Great Breakfasts of My Childhood” by Ryan Warren

March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 ~ jama ~ 26 Comments

*“Every Boy and Girl Needs a Hot Breakfast”/Cream of Wheat ad by Frederic Kimball Mizen (1926)*

Good Morning!

Hungry for a little breakfast?

Coming right up!

*Top ‘o the Morning Lucky Charms Pancakes*

GREAT BREAKFASTS OF MY CHILDHOOD
by Ryan Warren

My grandfather liked to fry potatoes on Sundays,
peppery and thick with soft onions,
though he knew I did not care for onions,
people didn’t seem to ask much then
children’s opinion on food preparation.
My grandfather, who lived to pull crisp waffles
from the electric iron, though always soggy
by the time you ate them. Who loved a big stack
of Krusteze pancakes, cooked a little too black,
adorned by cold chunks of margarine and Log Cabin Syrup.
On weekdays, though, it was oatmeal,
thick from the pot, clumps of hardening raisins
softening as they were stirred in
with milk, with little rocks of brown sugar.
occasionally, Cream of Wheat instead.
My mother rose later, with my brothers,
and breakfast from her was always a surprise —
though she loved toast the best. Cheese toast,
melted cheddar sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon toast,
toast with peanut butter, with honey, with butter and jam,
with a soft boiled egg quivering atop, sprinkled
with salt and pepper. Eggs, eggs so many ways.
Scrambled with hot dogs, with cheese. Poached. Fried,
yolk unbroken, toast to sop up that sunny puddle of delight.
We were a breakfast family, no “Just a cup of coffee for me.”
Breakfast — to fortify your day, arm you for school, work,
occasionally, and for feverish stretches at a time, for church.
Different churches, different times. We moved in strange
cycles of devotion. But from breakfast we never wavered.
I’ve never understood those for whom food is merely fuel.
And I’m sure they’ve never understood me. How even a bowl
of sugar cereal, dug deep into a cartooned Saturday morning,
Lucky Charms or Captain Crunch or Frosted Flakes
or whatever had been on sale that week, could be a kind of devotion,
a ritual, richer than any of the churches we wove in and out of.
Or sometimes we just had it for dessert.
Don’t even get me started on dessert.

~ first published in The Scarlet Leaf Review (April 2017)

Continue reading →

weekend breakfast poetry buffet

May 27, 2016September 11, 2017 ~ jama ~ 34 Comments

Good Morning!

Did you know that poetry is the most important meal of the day?

Spoon up a hearty bowl of metaphors, savor a sonnet, sip a warm couplet of coffee or tea.

Since man cannot live on bread alone, today we’re serving up a breakfast buffet of five poems over easy. Feel free to grab a quick nibble or graze at your leisure, whatever feeds the need over this holiday weekend. Nothing like a few choice words to tease thought, kindle fond memories, and get your motor running. Did somebody say bacon? 🙂

Step right up and eat all about it.

A LITANY OF TOAST
by Cathy Lentes

Come sit at my Grandmother’s table . . .
let your elbows rest, cool and damp,
on the scrubbed red oilcloth.

Before you a bowl of butter,
fat yellow sticks
cut and jumbled like stones,
honey clinging to comb,
jam and jelly
sealed in paraffin tombs.

A clatter of spoons,
the dance of grease on an iron pan,
the tender crack and sizzle as
morning splits open again.
Her hands blessing the stove,
she murmurs, mindful of toast.

Now, on a plate, heavy and broad,
steaming eggs like sunshine,
thick planks of bacon,
bread, crisp and golden,
butter spread crust to crust.
Eat, she says, eat.

Feed on her gospel before you.

~ from O Taste and See: Food Poems, edited by David Lee Garrison and Terry Hermsen (Bottom Dog Press, 2003).

BREAKFAST
by Merrill Leffler

This morning I’ll skip the bacon
and eggs and have a poem over light —
two or three if you don’t mind.
I feel my appetite coming on.
And even a stack of flapjacks
which I love — with butter
and boysenberry jam spreading
their fingers of sweetness over
the ragged edges — won’t do me now.
When this hunger’s on, only a poem
will do, one that will surprise my need
like a stranger knocking
at the door (a small knock — at first,
I hardly hear it) to ask directions,
it turns out, to this house. He’s looking
for me. Who are you I ask? Your brother
he says, the one you never knew you had
or the one who you’ve been trying to remember
all your life but somehow couldn’t recall
until now, when he arrives.
And there he is
before me smiling, holding out his arms
— and all this by chance. Do you
believe it?
So serve me up a poem friend,
but just go easy on the tropes,
for instance, synecdoche and such. A simile
or two is fine and metaphor’s all right.
A rhyming quatrain, maybe on the side
would be ok, but not too much —
they sometimes give me gas.
God I love a breakfast such as this.
It gives me a running start and keeps me going
through to dark when I’m as hungry as a horse.
But that’s another poem. Let’s eat.

~ from The Poet’s Cookbook: Recipes from Germany, edited by Grace Cavalieri and Sabine Pascarelli (Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., 2010)

THE LIFE OF MAN
by Russell Edson

For breakfast a man must break an egg. Then not all the
king’s horses and all the king’s men can do very much about it.

Past perfect the broken egg no longer breaks, a dead man no
longer dies…

And as he spills the broken egg into a frying pan he murmurs,
Ah, well, too bad about Humpty Dumpty…

~ from See Jack by Russell Edson (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009)

RENDERING
by Seth Bockley

I savored every Saturday
when she rendered
up to the gods what was theirs
(a burnt offering:
crisp edged plank of glistening
smoked pork in its glory).
at five, I marveled at the marbled
slab of sizzle–
standing on a chair, my eyes watering,
as before me a transubstantiation occurred:
bacon became Bacon, my mouth gaped adrool–
and still that sizzle echoes
through time’s larders
and the years’ open windows,
her gingham curtains wafting
as fat is forever rendered
into memory and hickory-smoke

IMAGINARY CONVERSATION
by Linda Pastan

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.

~ from Insomnia by Linda Pastan (W.W. Norton, 2015).

I love entering the worlds of these poems, hearing the voices. It’s like having interesting company at the breakfast table, isn’t it? 🙂

The eminently talented Julie Larios is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup at The Drift Record. After you’ve had your second cup of coffee, scamper over and peruse the full menu of poetic goodies being shared in the blogosphere this week. Have a great holiday weekend!