I really liked _Poem for a Shallot_ by Katherine Gallagher: crisp and sharp
of image. Here's an earlier poem of mine which was anthologised in a
collection called Summer Shorts, with a Food theme (FACP), then in my
Mother Waits book (again, FACP).
Andrew
Sunday Roast
(for my mother)
In this room I surround myself
with books
open like birds in flight
Through my door a smell
of roast
takes me back to childhood
brothers and sisters and I
roamed the house
asking Mother for lunch
as roast potatoes spat
oven door
opened and slammed
gravy's deep brown consistency
stirred
with a flat wooden spoon
Six streets away at Freshwater Bay
Yacht Club
Father stood 'just one more
for the road' Oven was
turned down
afternoon grumbled on
pale-faced plates on the table
knives and forks
straightened again and again
I still have the iron
Father flailed
his carving knife at
in a swashbuckling rhythm which
called us
to lunch 3:45 Sunday
Today I hunger for us
to be
impossibly together again
I close my books and go
walking
this grey day in Spring
A lovely story goes with this poem. A local school teacher "did" this poem
with his Year 11s (that's about 16 years of age) at a ritzy girls' school,
and asked them to write an analysis or response to it. One girl wrote that
the poet had chosen his verse shape to reflect the two parents standing
each side of the child to protect him. The thought never struck me, but I'm
glad I did it that way, even if only for that one reader.
Andrew
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