Poetry/Cooking/Individualism
Un-Shallow Feminism
Aloud Journaling@CloudCafe
“If you knew how to cook, maybe I would eat,” Jace muttered.
Isabelle froze, her spoon poised dangerously. “What did you say?”
Jace edged toward the fridge. “I said I’m going to look for a snack to eat.”
That’s what I thought you said.” Isabelle turned her attention to the soup.”― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
I am a good cook.
I know this because they leave a note on their slurped up plates.
I am a talented inclusion to the pool. A performer.
I know this as my CEO tells me at the end of a meeting.
I can also cook.
I have intellectual manifestations of the highest kind.
I am told.
Because poetry is my serotonin.
But I am a performer who can cook.
“You can become the President of a country,
But you will never earn respect if you fail to put
food on your family’s plate.” Sound advice from
a wise mother.
Any idea, what was the secret advice Obama
received?!
‘Cos I perform when I cook poetry.
******
My house has a sun roof that connects the sky.
Every time it breaks, shards of the blue earth
fill my room. It floods —
Where I cook
Where I write
Write to connect the sky
Nurse my knees…..
******
[She sheds her cloak.
Climbs up the guava tree,
And sitting on one of its branches,
Enjoys a dose of that anti-diabetic fruit—
The mic drop.
Falls into the vacated cloak thrown and soiled beside the Dias.
Now empty.]
Thought Cafe: “Calvin: Why are you crying mom?
Mom: I’m cutting up an onion.
Calvin: It must be hard to cook if you anthrpomorphisize your vegetables.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and HobbesThe polychromous ways cooking is looked around the world has always intrigued me.
If you are a Micheline starred celebrated Chef or ‘At-home’ cook experimenting in your own small ways and feeding your family — you ARE cooking. Does it have to be a storm every time?If food and hunger are humanitarian issues why regular cooking is relegated to a feministic overture.
What will a person do if his/her only talent is to cook a good plate but not good enough to become a star chef?
On the contrary, what happens when you can’t cook, because even then you need to eat.
Or am I only empowered when I write poetry, who am I when I cook ? Or who am I when I am incapable of doing any of those?
And in all this, how much of it is actually about ‘Cooking’.
Or cooking is only a metaphor…..
My friend and poet Somsubhra Banerjee has come out with his second collection of poetry. If his first one was a ride on the emotional river, his second one promises to be on the lighter side of verse. You can find the details of his second book Here.
It is raining books (good for us) as James G Brennan has also decided to compile some of his old poems into a book, talking of an era gone by.
Sure to be an interesting binding of verse, do find the details of his book Here.
Sam Aureli makes music with this melodious piece you cannot miss. Read him in Do-you-remember.
So long from Soul Bay. It’s always an increased level of serotonin to come back here, to all the engagement, encouragement best wishes and friends gathering around my coffee table — can’t ask for more!
The only song that came to my mind was from this quiet queen of non-conformation — Julie Andrews in Sound of Music, ‘Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens….these are a few of my favourite things’:
