On Vegetarianism and Monogamy - Naomi

On Vegetarianism and Monogamy



First I
sauteed the onions
until the opaque became
translucent
Alternative ingredients
build and thicken the dressing
Substituting animal fruits for
kinder, inanimate nutrients



Meeting daily caloric needs
of intimacy can be strained.
Hunting and gathering
compliments
and touches
But to refrain from
hunting--
against natural instincts--
evolutionarily seems
counterproductive.



And yet--
the body moves more freely
not weighed down
with dense
digestion



And while beads
form and glisten
on the browning
skin of the turkey
I know
it will not be me
who dismantles
the strips of meat
with my tongue

Food, glorious food!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I propose we write poetry about FOOD!  Food is such a big part of our, or any, culture.  So much of Susan and my time together has been around various kitchen tables, enjoying amazing food with people we love.  There are wonderful amazing things that people are doing with food, and also hurtful ways that food is used against us.  This is the first time I am preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and I am looking forward to doing some serious meditating on the food we eat, and the wonderful people I will be eating with!

News Poem

For this poem I drew inspiration from National Geographic - Jimmy's mom got us a subscription last Christmas and it has been a monthly source of wonder.

Telescope

I want to talk about peripheries:

how we define ourselves by what surrounds us –

and what we keep at bay.

I was reading about the North,

about Scandinavia, up close to the Arctic.

There are people there, called Sami –

at the edge of all things, just before unending white.

They herd the reindeer, sing to them,

move with the living, beating, tide of fur and hoof

across imagined borders, inked and named

in far off, warmer places, where the lines are drawn.

I saw a picture, once, of galaxies colliding –

an image of the past so distant,

the mind recoils from the knowing.

Four arms encircled, spiraled tighter, and there,

became a Rose.

These stories are not connected.

Or, if they are, it is only from the outside,

looking in.

Don't Ask for the Meaning- Naomi

Here is my poem from the Social Media Found theme. All were notes on my Twitter feed. Luckily I follow some of the world's greatest minds, so my samples were extraordinary. Thanks New Yorker, John Darnielle, and Neil Gaiman!

Don't Ask for the Meaning

Now's the perfect time
Of the day,
lonely, cold, wet Halloween,
Beautiful and amazing.
Looking forward
Finally, the cries of our spiritual hunger are answered.
I felt it deserved to live
Petition to save
God Says
Lions mocking
A symbol left from the dictator’s regime
Postage stamps
Not sure I got what I was going for
A new chapter
The magical glorious peculiar show
in need of heavy editing
Humans evolved to be social creatures
Thank you to my co-conspirators--
Some of the world’s most beautiful.
Don’t ask for the meaning- ask for the use

What's the News?

I loved our last theme, and I've decided to build on it a little for our next prompt. One of the great things about living in our digital age is the ability to tap into a nearly infinite network of information. The whole of human knowledge is quite literally at our fingertips. The world is our library.

With that in mind, this week I'd like to dig a little deeper. For this prompt, choose one article, photograph, status update, headline, tweet, or whatever else you find out there on the world wide interwebs and elaborate it into a poem in your own words. Dive in, and enjoy!

Found Poem

To begin with: I apologize for my dereliction of duty last week! I was experiencing a serious case of writer's block tied to some recent anxieties and upsets. But I'm back now, and I absolutely love this week's prompt. Social media is so much a part of our every day lives, but it's rare that we stop to find the poetry in it.
Artists have been exploiting the bounty of the digital age since the 90s, acting something like DJ's, rearranging bits and pieces of found visual information, creating meaning by altering the context in which these images are received. I tried to approach this assignment from an artistic angle rather than a literary one, creating a collage of words that's meant to evoke a certain mood rather than prompt textual analysis. The poem is pieced together entirely from sentences and fragments of sentences that appeared on my Facebook newsfeed in the past few days, as is the picture, which was taken by a friend of mine in New York as Central Park was buried in the first snow of the season.

Fog Machines

Oh, hello, nor’easter.

The first flurries of the season fell, carried by the wind, followed by the leaves.

But there is still that lingering thought.

How could you ever

Confirm/deny?

There are no words

... Perchè niente è cambiato anche se tutto è diverso.

For now we are young.

Still, that lingering thought.

Chemistry and timing.

I write

and hope to see.

That lingering thought.

Even then it is a moment of grace.

Theme: Social Media Found Poetry

Found poetry has been one of my favorite genres of poetry since I first played with it in high school.  Infinite combinations can be made when you only take the words of other people and reconstruct them in new and meaningful ways.  Our dialogue theme last week made me think a lot about how we communicate today compared to generations past.  Certainly the internet and social media have opened communication channels that were previously untapped, whether that is for good or not is open to debate.  So, in honor of this meditation on communication I challenge you to choose one channel of social media, be it your e-mail inbox, your Facebook  or Twitter stream, or whatever the kids are keeping up with these days and create a found poem using the words of the social network.  Enjoy!