Joyce Carol Oates wrote, “If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?” I don’t know about that, but most afternoons, you’ll find me at Chipotle, commenting on poems. Something about the ambience and the familiarity of a burrito bowl focuses me.
Right now, I think Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Fame is a fickle food (1702),” is the best food poem. It’s also about fame. To write a poem to be famous is, of course, ludicrous. I always say, “I just want readers,” and one of my professors once asked whether I’d rather have a thousand ambivalent ones or ten who get it, and I think I’d rather have the latter. Dickinson’s bite-sized-but-endlessly-fulfilling poem reminds us that, in the end, we all die.
Kevin Young wrote, “One of the things I think [poets] enjoy about a great meal is that it goes away….” I think one of the things about a finished, published poem is that, once it’s out in the world, it takes on its own life within and among the lives of its readers. I find this endlessly comforting and freeing. Language is inherently unstable and its meaning shifts depending on the time, place, and experience of its consumers. The transaction that occurs between poet and reader by means of the poem is one of fluidity and flux. It’s probably naive to think poetry or dinner can save the world. When I’m tired, though, or hungry, just one more line or the next bite can feel that way. Writing poetry, like finding a place to eat, for me, is an intuitive practice. My best lines come from the minutes between sleeping and waking, and as they accumulate, those can become the first draft of a poem. Likewise, where to eat, what I’m hungry for, is a daily decision that just seems to happen. Another thing I always say is, “A writer is always writing.” I’m always observing and rolling potential lines through my mind. I’m also always hungry for actual food.
After moving to New York City, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown reinvigorated food for me, where to go in this endless city, and I began to hunt for the best Thai, the best Chinese, the best out-of-the-way hole. Bourdain is an eclectic eater, happy in both a Bellagio suite and a street-food stand in Hue. I’m like that, or I’d like to be like that. He revels in tripe and hoofs and lips and heads. I’d like to be like that.
Charles Baudelaire is quoted saying, “Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.” I don’t know about that, but once you’re moved by a poem, you crave the taste of the sublime that it provides. For what it’s worth, I absolutely could not go two days without food, but maybe that just means I’m not healthy.
Darren Lyons is The Inquisitive Eater's Poet of the Month for April 2018.
Darren Lyons is currently earning his MFA in poetry at the The New School. His work has been featured in Chronogram, Stonesthrow Review, and on The Best American Poetry Blog.
Featured image: “Portrait de Charles Baudelaire,” by Gustave Courbet
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