Tag Archives: poetry

Alphabet Soup!

Autumn Giles of Autumn Makes & Does has started a new podcast called Alphabet Soup, a podcast about food and words. Autumn graciously asked to interview me for the third episode, and it was so much fun! We covered a lot of ground: Salt Salon, short stories, J.D. Salinger, neuroscience, Proust, blackberries, tea parties, etc, etc.

I really enjoyed our chat. Listening to the episode just now, I realized that I haven’t actually heard the poem Blackberry Eating read in a really long time (not counting the times I read it aloud). It’s a delightful-sounding poem.

Autumn writes a great summary of the episode here.

You can listen to the interview here: Alphabet Soup Podcast — OR  you can just subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. In fact, you should do just that.

a podcast about food & words

a podcast about food & words

New Project: Salt Salon

In the spirit of the traditional artist salon, I’m inviting guests into my home for an intimate evening of great art and fabulous finger food.

I’m very excited to have Tara Betts as the inaugural poet for the Salon. Tara is the author of Arc & Hue. She is co-editor of Bop, Strut, and Dance with Afaa M. Weaver. Tara teaches at Rutgers University and Urban Word NYC. Her work has been featured on WNYC, Steppenwolf Theater’s “Words on Fire,” HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, the Black Family Channel’s SPOKEN, and the film-in-development Violets Are Read. Her work appears in anthologies and journals. In 2011, Tara was commissioned to write a libretto inspired by the friendship of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Peggy Choy Dance Company.

The Salt Salon was born from the realization that pretty much my whole life is taken up by food or art. This is where I combine the two. Each installation of the Salt Salon series will feature an artist performing her/his work — poetry, prose, music, performance art, you name it — and a featured chef’s culinary creations. A simple recipe for an extraordinary evening.

For more information about the Salon and to keep abreast of developments, follow the Salt Salon Blog!

Ode to Salt

by Pablo Neruda

This salt
in the salt cellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won’t
believe me
but
it sings
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those
solitudes
when I heard
the voice
of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a
broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.
And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food.
Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.