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Thanksgiving 2016 | A Menu Poem
Guest of Honor : Elizabeth Alexander
GH
BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York
Thanksgiving Menu-Poem 2016, One Hundred Megawatts of Butter and Chorus of Life
Copyright 2016 by Geoffrey Gatza
First Edition
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Geoffrey Gatza
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org
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Thanksgiving Menu
One Hundred Megawatts Of Butter
Soup:
Crab Velout with Sherry and Blue Crab Roe
Lemon Zest Tuile
Appetizer:
Turkey Cutlets Sauted in Lemon and Butter
Fish:
Penko Crusted Fish Cakes with Mango Vinaigrette
Grilled Hearts of Palm, Macadamia Nuts, Mizuna Salad
Intermezzo:
Lemon Bergamot Sorbet with Honeycomb Meringue
Dessert:
Fresh Mission Figs on a Bed Of Crepes,
Beurre Noisette And Warm Alaga Syrup.
* * *
Food and cuisine are very important elements in Elizabeth Alexander poetry. They take shape in many
forms and fashions in her work, such as in the vegetables in Autumn Passage, the comfort foods in Butter, or as the
desire for a Coke and a hamburger in Apollo after the seeming disappointment that the moon is not in fact made of
cheese, green or otherwise. The citrus and bergamot flavors and poppy seed cake bring her closer to an imagined
Sylvia Plath who is setting her hair in The female seer will burn upon this pyre. These foods often portrayed the human
element, the invisible hunger, the humanizing factor in a world that sees her as other, a person that is often not
allowed to be where she should be, the person who is spat at lost and seeking directions. They are also the shown to
be the comforts of the world through its foods such as the figs, string cheese, apricots, olives, and stuffed grape
leaves in the poem Boston Year. In her poem Crash, Alexander describes her survival from a small plane crash in a
cornfield near Philly. She writes:
* * *
This time last year I was shopping for books in a pop-up shop at our local
mall. After poking through the many of the usual choices that this small shop could
offer for its Christmas selections, I was elated to find Elizabeth Alexanders new
memoir, The Light of the World, which details the unexpected loss of her husband
Ficre Ghebreyesus. This is a moving book, which the New York Journal of Books,
calls ... crushing, lovely, painful, and above all powerful. After picking up this book
I knew our shopping trip was over, the plan for the day changed and I was going to
read this book. I was going through my own modes of grief and her book had me
hooked immediately. Her memories held a glorious poetics that held everything I
needed to focus on. It was in this moment that I started to conceive a menu-poem for
her. After many starts and stops, restarts and heavy editing I found my pathway to write this work.
In Chorus of Life: Twenty-One Voices Led by Dr. Victor Frankenstein I found my way to address a response. Here
are twenty voices, taking the form of a choir, still reeling from the loss of someone in their lives. Each poem is a
person recalling, remembering, and reliving something that can only call upon the fragility of life, the emptiness of
grief and the awful monster that it creates. The poems themselves appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and
reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key
role. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, I wanted to amplify the response of the reader by creating writings
and settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and
alienation.
I hope you enjoy this meal, the menu and the poem. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Rockets, Geoffrey
Professor Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, and teacher. She
is the author of six books of poems, two collections of essays, a
play, and various edited collections. She was recently named a
Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, as well as the Wun
Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia
University. She previously served as the inaugural Frederick
Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University, where she taught
for 15 years and chaired the African American Studies
Department. In 2009, she composed and delivered Praise Song
for the Day for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Her memoir, The Light of the World, was released in 2015 to great
acclaim.
Interesting Links
Praise Song for the Day, 2009 Presidential Inauguration, Elizabeth Alexander
Keynote- Elizabeth Alexander, Towards an Intellectual History of Black Women Conference, April 29, 2011
Chorus of Life
Twenty-One Voices Led by Dr. Victor Frankenstein
Conductors Invocation:
She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the
feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents
itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the
mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a
part of our own can have departed forever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been
extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more
to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the
reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude
hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt,
and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and
the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My
mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course
with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not
seized.
and as they would clear, find focus I hoped beyond hope to see
him standing there, ready with a napkin to dry my eyes, carry me
to our spots on the couch and we would do something together
I would fall to pieces at mealtimes. I sat next to him at the kitchen table
I missed sitting near him. My mother, my father and I would eat together.
I was old enough to be aware that she too was inconsolable.
and she ... she wanted me to not be so sad, although it was inevitable.
She told me it was ok to be sad. It is all right to suffer. It is good to feel.
It is not a disadvantage to talk about it.
To suffer is ok.
And in our subsequent lives we have, if nothing else, excelled at being ok.
Soprano 1
Mom had a few partners over the years, mostly who turned out to be pretty
unreliable, and I never felt like anyone could ever replace my dad.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time and hug my smaller self.
I would hold me tight and tell me that, you know what, sometimes life
can go very wrong very quickly, but just be a child and grow, live.
Our daughter was a great help, but death is so abstract for those whove never
experienced a loved ones passing. The farther away one is from dying
the harder it is to accept.
Father had gone off, married again months after their divorce.
We were left alone, it seemed, as if our parents had deserted us.
Our new stepmother was not happy to have us live with her
And her new husband. Being older now, I can understand a bit more,
But then again, I cannot fathom her actions.
Today, many decades past these events, I still resent their decisions.
I trust very few people, talk to no one about my true feelings.
I remember being told that she had died and gone to heaven.
I was devastated, knowing that death was forever.
My sister was not saddened. She recalled a priest tell her
That in heaven she would get better. From this she figured
That her chest would be repaired, her arms would grow again
And that she would regain the use of her legs.
Discovered this
And laughed.
Bass 1
In all of us.
Counts.
Normalize death
By thinking of it
As a dear friend
Return to earth
Which we rose,
Unstuck.
Alto 4
Lifeless.
I looked at you
and I thought,
Here. And
I am
tired
Life is
exhausting
without you
The towels
are still
under your
pillow.
I smell
them
and
wince, I
imagine
you
are
still
here.
No area
of our lives
are unaffected
by
your
death.
I remembered thinking
that you would be cold
When your remains were ready, they called up to schedule an appointment for collection.
I took a bus to the crematorium to retrieve your ashes, and planned to walk home because the whole bus
was very busy and I know how you were about crowds. When I got there, I was really surprised by how
dull, white and corporate the whole place was. Not that I was expecting a church or anything, but I had
hoped for more wood, or a plant, or a flower.
I cry
for all
of our
yesterdays
Oddly enough, I kept your bagged lunch I prepared that day.
I froze it
it is still in the freezer,
waiting
for something
for someone
for something
that even I am not sure of
to happen
to forget
waiting
to undo the horror
the precariousness
of life, almost instantly
death
caused
Bass 1
Its the worst thing ever when someone you love dies
And then seeing the world happily going on with their lives,
Not giving a shit and showing off a new shade of lip gloss.
Your whole life has fallen apart, yet the world still turns
And other people go on being normal.
Kristy told me to see this clip on YouTube from and old movie,
Four Weddings and a Funeral. Someone reads a poem by some dead
Guy called Stop All the Clocks. And I just feel like, no, I can't do that,
I just don't want to. I want life to just go back to the way it was because
Life is now over; nothing good can come from anything anymore. Ever.
Bass 3
Poems.
I THINK IT WAS
Woody Allen
or
Spike Milligan
However
Frankensteins monster
With pitchforks and fire.
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