“Peace goes into the making of a poem, as flour goes into the making of bread.” ~ Pablo Neruda
The other day, after rereading Lesléa Newman’s, “According to Bread,” one of my favorite poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Pomelo Books, 2013), chewy, mouthwatering bread names playfully called to me, each a poem unto itself.
Bagel, Brioche, Baguette . . . Ciabatta, Challah, Chapati . . . Kulcha, Lavash, Focaccia, Tortilla, Pita, Zwieback.
Play with us, they said. Roll, pat, toss us! Slice, butter, dip, fill, break us. We know we smell good. 🙂
Bread is a beautiful thing — venerable, inclusive, eternal, irresistible. Staff of life and a sacrament, it pays our way and is a gift from every culture and ethnicity in the world.
Just naming these breads makes me happy. I daresay I feel a tad cosmopolitan because I’ve actually tasted all of them and more. What do you reach for when the bread basket is passed around?
Jama's Alphabet Soup 