Coffee with Collards and Kale
Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash
The Best Verse Surprises Us
In the last post, we ventured into the realm of taste. Did you write about a food that you enjoy or dislike? How did that go? Perhaps you began with a free-write, a helpful way to discover surprising lines and images.
Many poems describe sensory joys delivered by taste, smell, sound, touch, and sight. Last time, I shared “Citrus Paradisi,” my poem which celebrates the succulence of grapefruit and briefly flies the reader to Barbados and Costa Rica.
Today, we will continue the foray into culinary verse by sampling Arabic coffee (poet Naomi Shihab Nye) and greens (poet Lucille Clifton). These acclaimed poets bring us into their kitchens and reintroduce us to perhaps familiar foods. Like all powerful verse, their original images allow us to experience something unexpected.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian American poet who writes about everyday joys and sorrows and the gifts of ancestry. Her images open our eyes into an emotional landscape which is the heartbeat of being human. She voices the anguish of war by bringing home to us the suffering of the family, the neighbor, and the friend. Nye’s message is one of creating community and “companioning each other;” she is a poet of peace and reconciliation.
Look for her message of equality and hospitality in the poem below, “Arabic Coffee.”
Arabic Coffee It was never too strong for us: / make it blacker, Papa,/ thick in the bottom,/ tell again how the years will gather/ in small white cups,/ how luck lives in a spot of grounds./ Leaning over the stove, he let it boil / to the top, and down again. / Two times. No sugar in his pot. / And the place where men and women / break off from one another/ was not present in that room. / The hundred disappointments,/ fire swallowing olive-wood beads/ at the warehouse, and the dreams/ tucked like pocket handkerchiefs/ into each day, took their places/ on the table, near the half-empty/ dish of corn. And none was/ more important than the others,/ and all were guests. When/ he carried the tray into the room,/ high and balanced in his hands,/ it was an offering to all of them,/ stay, be seated, follow the talk/ wherever it goes. The coffee was/ the center of the flower./ Like clothes on a line saying/ You will live long enough to wear me,/ a motion of faith. There is this,/ and there is more./ -Naomi Shihab Nye from Red Suitcase: Poems, 1994, and also in 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, 2002. This poem is accessible online. Listen to Nye read "Arabic Coffee" here.
Photo by SI Janko Ferlic on Unsplash
Nye’s Images
“Arabic Coffee” takes us into the experience of enjoying coffee with a crowd of friends and neighbors within Nye’s childhood home. But, there is more happening here. Her images gather around themes: One idea conveyed is of the sweetness of community, equality and respect. Another theme is of violence and the need to hide as well as the experience of deprivation.
Can you see, hear, and feel the history Nye is conveying? Which lines speak to you?
We see and practically taste the black coffee as “Papa” boils it on the stove, watch him carry it in “small white cups” to the houseguests. Notice the key word, “balanced” to describe how her father carries the tray.
Nye’s verse is kind to us: It is easy to read and understand, and simultaneously says so much. There is a natural flow to her poem that carries us along, and states, unequivocally, what are the truths through her description and metaphors.
Life is to be celebrated even in the midst of death. Life is to be about a community of equals who are treated with hospitality: Notice her lines, “And the place where men and women / break off from one another / was not present in that room;” “… And none was / more important than the others, / and all were guests …”
This is a place and a people that have known hunger, sorrow, and violence. She tells us “how luck lives in a spot of grounds,” about the destruction of olive-wood beads, a spiritual symbol of health and serenity, in a warehouse fire. This is a powerful image that conveys the price of constant conflict in the Middle East. The dish of corn is not half-full but rather “half-empty.” Dreams that had to be hidden like “pocket handkerchiefs” in the light of day can be openly shared at her family table with the others gathered.
“Arabic Coffee” concludes with a beautiful image of the coffee serving as “the center of the flower.” This coffee is the sweetness that friends, like bees, flock to, a kind of nourishment, “a motion of faith” that life will continue and even get better, “and there is more.” Nye, ever the poet, includes the image of clothes blowing on a clothesline, that declare, “You will live long enough to wear me.” This image reminds us of the precarious nature of life in Palestine.
Share your questions and observations about “Arabic Coffee” in the Comments section.
First Book Pick
Photo by Diana Ewell Engel
I was thrilled to meet Naomi Shihab Nye years ago and to buy this alternately humorous, poignant, and affirming book of poetry and short prose, Honeybee which, by the way, is a great choice for the youth in your family. For adult readers, I recommend her wonderful poetry collection, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East.
Turning to Lucille Clifton
Like Naomi Shihab Nye, Lucille Clifton knew adversity. An African-American writer, Clifton voiced the experience of being a black woman and the rich heritage from which she came. Like Nye’s verse, her poetry thrums with humanity. This prolific poet wrote twelve collections of verse which covered a multitude of important subjects. From the Poetry Foundation website: “Writing in Poetry, Ralph J. Mills, Jr., said that Clifton’s poetic scope transcends the black experience ‘to embrace the entire world, human and non-human, in the deep affirmation she makes in the teeth of negative evidence.’” Her overarching message is of endurance.
As you read “cutting greens,” notice the color Clifton brings to life in this poem. How does the ending contradict the thought with which she started?
cutting greens curling them around/ i hold their bodies in obscene embrace/ thinking of everything but kinship. / collards and kale/ strain against each strange other/ away from my kissmaking hand and/ the iron bedpot. / the pot is black, / the cutting board is black,/ my hand,/ and just for a minute/ the greens roll black under the knife, / and the kitchen twists dark on its spine / and I taste in my natural appetite/ the bond of live things everywhere. / -Lucille Clifton from Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, American Poets Continuum Series, 1987. This poem is accessible on the Poetry Foundation website.
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Clifton’s greens
Notice the style of Lucille Clifton’s writing, short lower-case lines without much punctuation. She is quietly understated and succinct. Ironically, this style grabs us: She is not yelling at us or putting on airs by choosing pretentious words.
We see Lucille Clifton in her kitchen preparing collards and kale. What words and images lead you to think she is writing about more than the act of preparing greens?
Writing from the perspective of a black woman living through trying times, she chooses the dramatic pairing of “obscene” with “embrace:” “I hold their bodies in obscene embrace,” and, in so doing, she points to one of the many off-limit alliances which was frowned upon during her time—Clifton was in her prime during the sixties, seventies, and eighties, a time of great strides in civil and women’s rights but also when equality remained maddeningly elusive. She may be making an indirect comparison of the mixed greens to a mixed-race couple in a passionate embrace. All things considered, it isn’t surprising that she is “thinking of everything but kinship.”
Along the same lines, did you notice how the “collards and kale / strain against each strange other,” away from her? They seem to want nothing to do with her “kissmaking hand,” a reference to her loving nature. Even so, the greens, like the pot, cutting board and her hand, are black as they “roll … under the knife.” This poet is now heading towards kinship. Like Nye, Clifton is deftly bringing in a reference to violence with the image of the knife.
Then comes the marvelous line, “and the kitchen twists dark on its spine.” As readers, we’re present; we feel the warmth and darkness of Clifton’s intimate kitchen. Spines are what support us; they are our backbones. We can imagine where she may be going here. The backbones of our kitchens and our industries were and remain to be many people of color.
Clifton was a poet of affirmation, even in the midst of struggle. Like Nye, she desired unity. In her closing lines, she conveys the interrelatedness of all living things: “and I taste in my natural appetite / the bond of live things everywhere.” Though “strange other(s)” may be considered “obscene” by many, she tastes the “natural” connection that is meant to exist among all living things.
Share your questions and comments about “cutting greens” in the Comments section.
Second Book Pick
Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 is a great introduction to the woman, Lucille Clifton, through her memoir, Generations, and to the poet through her first four collections of verse. This book was a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
For Next Time: An Easy Writing Assignment, Poetry of Place
Read again the two poems in this post, “Arabic Coffee” and “cutting greens.” Take note of how Nye and Clifton describe their kitchens—who is present or not, the objects and foods, the extra images and comparisons they make such as the fire at the warehouse (Nye) and the “obscene embrace” of the greens (Clifton) which take us momentarily out of their kitchens but which also enrich and expand the meaning of these poems. Afterwards, choose a place that has meaning for you and sit there for 15 minutes. In your image notebook, write down everything you observe—sights, sounds, smells, colors, temperature, light, etc. Jot down any actions you see as well: smoking, cooking, sipping, running. Note the details: If you are looking at a poster or framed print, write down what images and message it conveys. Ponder in a poetic manner: If you think of a comparison, write it down. The blades of the ceiling fan may remind you of plane turbines. Write about where the image leads you. The sound of a car in the rain may take your mind back to another experience. Write about that. Also notice what’s happening with you: Are you feeling sleepy, preoccupied, stressed? Is your heart beating wildly or are you bored? Include this in your image journal. Try your hand at crafting this into a poem or two. Follow your intuition: Your mind may direct you to write a poem that isn’t about where you are but about another experience that emerges from your memory. Place and memory/history can be combined and work well together: “Arabic Coffee” and “cutting greens” do this exquisitely.
Share some of your observations or the poem you wrote in the Comments section. I look forward to reading your writing!
Photo by Diana Ewell Engel