SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW
Theme: IN THE KITCHEN
SUMMER ISSUE 2025
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Unless otherwise indicated, all art is taken from "royalty-free" Internet sources.
Chief Executive Editor
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
Co-Editors-in-Chief
Terri L. Cummings
Charles A. Swanson
Guest Art Editor
Terri Lynn Cummings
Frequent Contributors
Terri Lynn Cummings
Steven Wittenberg Gordon
John C. Mannone
Vivian Finley Nida
Howard F. Stein
Charles A. Swanson
Tyson West
Biographies of our editorial staff & frequent contributors may be found on the "Our Staff" page.
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Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief
Charles A. Swanson
Featured Frequent Contributors
John C. Mannone
“Fusion”
“Pot Roast”
“In My Mother’s Kitchen: Cassadeggi”
Tyson West
“Old Woman Cooking Eggs”
“My Kitchen at Sally’s Tavern”
“Grandma’s Realm”
Other Frequent Contributors
Shlomo Ben Moshe HaLevi
(Steven Wittenberg Gordon)
“The Oldest Form of Hate”
Vivian Finley Nida
“In the Garage Apartment Kitchen”
Howard F. Stein
“Grandpa’s Kitchen Stove”
“Baked Eggplant in the Kitchen with Mom”
Terri Lynn Cummings
“World War II
Weekly Food Ration
Per Person Per Week
Great Britain 1940-1954”
Charles A. Swanson
“Brown Bread”
“Meal Planning”
“Wild Gatherings: Persimmon Pulp”
Guest Poets
Sean Whalen
“So…We Bake Cakes Then…”
Melanie Faith
“Preservation”
Shikhandin
“My Neighbor’s Cooking Haleem”
“From My Kitchen Window”
Salvatore Difalco
“Halfway House”
“Summer”
Robin Woolman
“Sweeping Conjugation”
Llewellyn McKernan
“What She Knows”
Ellen Estilai
“Tehran: Friday Lunches Before and After the
Revolution”
Paul A. Freeman
“Long-Gone Kitchen”
Dana I. Hunter
“Kitchen
Courtroom”
Diane Gottlieb
“Reprieve”
“Hope”
Chrissie Anderson Peters
“A Smoke in the Kitchen”
Janet McCann
“Cooking for the Cat”
Guest Poet, General Submission
John Wise
“Smoke Break”
Frequent Contributor News
Financial Support
2025 Themes: What We are Looking For
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A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief
I love reading submissions, but I despair to send letters saying, “Sorry, we have decided not to publish your poem.” Nevertheless, the joy that comes in presenting many fine poems for your reading pleasure is a joy worth noting. Thank you to all the poets who submitted, whether your poem was chosen or not. I encourage you to submit again. We want the best for you.
I am a bit of a rose-colored-glasses
kind of person. When I imagined kitchen
poems, I thought of cheerful experiences, of luscious dishes, of warm tales
told around the kitchen table. I didn’t
think much about heartbreak, about anger, about brokenness. Of course, the kitchen is not immune to
disaster.
The range of experiences represented in
these poems is authentic. The sweet and
the bitter coexist. The normal and the
strange bubble along together in the great kitchen pot of life. If you like simple dishes, easy to digest and
sweet to the tongue, you’ll find some.
If your taste is for the smoky kitchen, the old recipes and
preparations, the acidic or acerbic notes that add pucker or tang, then you’ll
find some, too. The menu is wide. We aim to please.
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Featured Frequent Contributors
Fusion
contrapuntal
John
C. Mannone
The
hotel shuttle drops me off
next
to the conference center.
The glass doors to
the café
mirror a hungry
physicist.
There
is plenty of time to set up the poster
layout;
the paper by my research professor:
For a moment, I
think about the science
of a pumpernickel
bagel in my kitchen—
a
torus shape sandwiching
a
hydrogen plasma for thermal fusion—
open face,
toasted, spread with
cream cheese,
topped with salmon
pink,
the color of hydrogen energized
to
a hundred million degrees, a hothouse
tomato, sliced,
and a red onion disc, together
with capers, a
dash of dill, and coarsely peppered
with
enough hot electrons held for a full second at those
searing
temperatures could lead to self-sustained fusion:
That “sandwich,”
with champagne (or coffee)
is exquisite. I am
drawn to it as if magnetic
fields
confine the plasma of Deuterium-Tritium isotopes, because
no
material could withstand the heat; it would vaporize anything.
Even an appetite
couldn’t survive
after consuming
such a gourmet breakfast.
I’m
now ready to lecture on thermal fusion reactors
at
the San Francisco plasma physics conference.
I am well-prepared
since fusion
of flavors has
sated my appetite.
Poet’s
Notes: This is based on a true experience when I flew to San
Francisco in 1985 to present a paper on fusion reactor basics at a
Nuclear and Plasma Physics Conference; in particular, for
the fusion of Deuterium (D) and Tritium (T)—isotopes of Hydrogen (H).
The D-T fusion reaction is the most feasible
for fusion power generation in a Tokamak design—a torus-shaped
magnetic field confines the plasma. Since I arrived a little early, I took time
to eat breakfast while thinking about my lecture. So I wrote this as a braided
poem, and perhaps even a contrapuntal poem where the two braids can be read
separately and well as intertwined.
Editor’s Notes: The physics column of the poem adds heat and depth to the sandwich column. Chemical reactions occur in much of cooking, but I rarely think of these. In this poem, the reactions are present and up-close. The physics transforms the sandwich, and I cannot help but see the fusion. CAS
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Pot
Roast
free
verse
John
C. Mannone
I.
Some
sing in the shower, but I sing in the kitchen.
At
other times, I want to play a simple song but it
morphs
into an orchestra, a libretto for an opera.
So
too for creating in my kitchen. I ask, whatever
happened
to the simplicity of meat and potatoes and
carrots
and celery and onions, all with a basic gravy?
I
want more variety, include green peppers and corn
still
on the cob, zucchini, mushrooms, and experiment
with
Brussels sprouts for more complexity.
II.
Before
browning, season the meat with sea salt
and
several good twists of a coarse ground medley
of
black, white, pink, and green peppercorns.
Let
rosemary and fresh garlic be intimate with the olive
oil
on its flesh, along with several whole bay leaves
on
each side. (I prefer the earthy European variety.)
Sizzle
the meat to titillate the nose and palate, I suppose
this
is where the song begins, there are no rueful
B-flat
notes to the tongue. After the browning,
let
it rest on a platter while the tempered pot
is
liberated from excess fat. Deglaze
with
a bit of broth. Create a rack from carrots,
corn,
celery, and yellow onions for the meat.
I
hum a hymn of sacrifice for my family’s sake,
a
praise, as vegetables braise and infuse their essence
into
the meat with steam before the roast is buried
under
the music of green peppers, potatoes, and
the
accompaniment of other vegetables, perhaps
sequenced
for the right movement for equality
of
doneness. There should be a blanket of parsley
and
other herbs sprinkled as one fancies
with
dollops of tomato paste to work its way
down
the collage into the underlying sea of juices:
broth
and wine, a dry red— the meat will be
deliriously drunk
also
with the earthiness of mushrooms: portabella,
cremini,
and white buttons, and for a vibrant
chord
progression, add porcini and shiitake.
III.
When
all have unified their song as one, the roast
tender
to the fork, remove and platter the offerings.
Reduce
the liquor in adagio, render it a gravy
by stirring it
into a roux in allegro.
Serve
with crusty bread, a glass of wine,
and
give thanks for the symphony you are about
to
receive. Amen.
Poet’s
Notes: A pot
roast cooked in a pot instead of the popular oven. It was actually my
mother who would sing. It was often Italian opera. Cooking is an artform that
sometimes transcends conventional culinary sense. And so the metaphor with
music was used to have the reader think that food preparation (from mise
en place through cooking and plating) let alone eating and enjoying is
art too.
Editor’s Notes: The poems that make me want to eat are poems I cherish. I would love to sit down at John’s pot roast and breathe in the aroma—then taste slowly, luxuriously, the blessing of food—a culinary praise-song. CAS
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In
My Mother’s Kitchen: Cassadeggi
free
verse
John
C. Mannone
My grandmother,
Rosa, brought a family recipe
from
Sicily to Buenos Aires. Fig tarts. Sumptuous
3-inch
fruit pies made with figs and vino cotto—
a
“cooked-down wine” from a concentration of must
from
muscatel grapes, a case yielding a small bottle.
My mother, Maria,
would make these tarts
for
my siblings and me on special occasions, besides
Christmas. The last
time I had the authentic ones, I was ten—
no
more of that syrupy wine from the Old Country was left.
it
originated with the Romans many centuries ago.
Mamma would
improvise with dried figs
and
her homemade plum and peach preserves
with
cloves & orange rind mixed with heat-reduced grape
juice.
Momma would cook up that special pastry
when
I came to visit from so many miles away, and not nearly
as often as we
both had wished. If she were only
here
now, I would tell her that I found vino cotto in
Australia,
and also from Calabria. Maybe the Internet
can
resurrect my dream of those treats, the sweetness
of
my childhood,
the bittersweetness
of my manhood, but
tempered with sweet-tart
smiles of my
mother.
Poet’s
Notes: I was elated on recently learning that vino cotto is
still available commercially! Sicilian
has many words unique to its region that the Italian language doesn’t
have, or has but with different meanings. “Cassadeggi” is a phonetic spelling
with the ggi sounding like a j or gi in “magic.” There is a Sicilian
recipe called cassadetti(e) that’s pronounced the same way but is
something different from what I’ve described. One will find a pastry filled
with sweetened ricotta with cinnamon in a dough similar to pie-crust dough, and
panfried then dusted with sugar. Yet, we have another name for that,
cappeggutti (sp?), which means little hat (not to be confused
with the Italian word for little hat, cappelleto). This dessert, it’s
very similar to what’s described as cassadetti(e) but also has some small
chocolate chips.
Editor’s Notes: Foods of childhood are not easily recreated. I’ve heard many times words such as these, “I can’t make it like Mama did,” or, “It doesn’t taste like Grandma’s.” Nostalgia wreathes food memory, and this issue would not be complete without some notes of nostalgia swirling through the kitchen’s air. CAS
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Old
Woman Cooking Eggs
ekphrastic
free verse
Tyson
West
Diego,
you had painted this bodegón as a young man,
long
before Felipe IV vampired your genius to illustrate
the
upshot of avuncular marriage as
the
penultimate Spanish Hapsburg king.
Your
eyes glowed already bright as the sap
of
manhood rose to compose the old woman's supple hands
whose
glow belies their age.
Strong
and agile, yet caressing the egg before the crack
sets
clear and yellow to white and dandelion as she
manipulates
her universe of clay bottles, wood spoons, and metal pots,
orbiting
the grind of mortar and pestle.
Dried
red chilis, gifts from Aztec and Maya mujeres―
peones
of the New World―
lie
on her table near purple onions.
When
my eyes first entered her cocina
they
fell upon her face swollen of left shot shafts of light―
the
knife in the bowl sundials her position and place as
the
life among still life.
No
well waxed, trimmed soldiers' mustaches
would
perk at her smile
perhaps
that is why she poaches without passion.
Salt
and pepper hair hidden under her plain white scarf demands I dream
of
once alluring fresh black locks
perfumed
of workaday Spanish herbs and East Asian spice.
Though
she sports no fine lace mantilla as Goya's
"Majas
on a Balcony," harlequin in their distant decade,
our
mujer shares protein and fat―
poached
eggs, salsas, and Jamón Ibérico prove her power
to
feed the attention of men
whose
hungers rise at dawn like Christ who in turn
offers
His flesh and blood at each new day's mass.
Poet’s
Notes: Diego Velázquez, in his youth, produced genre
paintings called "bodegóns" which reflect everyday objects, including
food and drink, in taverns and kitchens. This genre in 17th century Spain gave
the upper classes, who purchased art, a view into the life of the common
people. These paintings tend to be character studies within still-life
backgrounds. This poem, "Old Woman Cooking Eggs," also contains a
cameo of a painting, two centuries later, by Goya called "Majas on the
Balcony", in which two young women on the balcony each wear lace
mantillas; one black, and the other white.
Editor’s Notes: West’s choice of a painting for the subject of this kitchen theme is a wise one. Through his poem, I enter a kitchen of long ago, one I haven’t seen in my own lifetime, although I’ve seen some very rudimentary kitchens. CAS
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My
Kitchen at Sally's Tavern
free
verse
Tyson
West
I
poked Father Flaherty once I done my time
I
was going back to my old trade―cookin'.
"Okay",
he says, "as long as it's food, not meth."
He
blessed me then laughed, "Ain't no kitchens in heaven
cause
except maybe for Jesus and the Virgin Mary,
no
one there got bodies to feed."
As
long as we got bodies here, they need me fixin' grub.
I
kept my cell clean, left the joint clean,
and
I needed someplace clean now
for
my body to finish its left over time on earth
since
I done the government's time in the joint.
So
I jumped at Sally's offer to make her kitchen my way station.
Sure,
her old man, Uncle Buddy, who Jesus gave
the
slickest tongue since Satan, wrapped flattery around my sorry ass but
I
would'a jumped at the chance to wipe, clean, and cook
at
Sally's Kitchen even without syrupy words.
No
one at Mickey Dees would want to see the cobweb tats on my elbows
or
let me make its kitchen mine once they seen my paperwork.
Sally
was too busy watchin' her barkeep
and
barmaids scramble pitchers and mixed drinks
to
snookies while Uncle Buddy perched his 350-pound ass
in
their basement card room massaging his poker hands and bluffing better
than
the Prince of Darkness hisself.
Neither
the judge who sentenced me
nor
guards at the joint
liked
my attitude, but Sally and Buddy didn't care,
as
long as I do time behind my kitchen door
passing
out fast and good grub through the slot.
Once
she tossed me the apron
I
was not scared of plugged sink traps or the oil slick on the floor.
The
Broaster smelled like a wino's breath
and
the food in the walk in must've come down the greasy hood vent
with
Santa Claus last Christmas.
I
tossed the stuff we couldn't use
but
definitely scrounged the ice block of frozen burgers.
I
topped the renderer's barrel out back
with
rancid Broaster fat and deep fryer oil gone dark
and
cleaned chicken breading and jojo crust
from
the cooking well of the Broaster.
I
spic and spanned floors and walls with gallons of ammonia―
the
best stuff to cut pig and cow fat.
Sally
only give me three days to get my kitchen up
but
Jesus only needed three days to rise hisself from the dead.
I
was sure I could roll back the stone from my kitchen door by then.
Uncle
Buddy tossed me a hand full of food stamps
he
got for half price tradin'
marked
up white port and Mad Dog
so
I shopped to fill my walk in to match my menu.
Sally
smiled and counted her till. Buddy just wanted a bratwurst,
so
I Broasted him a half dozen.
Pots
and pans put away and fresh sweet grease
gleaming
in the Broaster and deep fryer under the spotless hood
my
grill glows red to cook off soap and cleaner smells
ready
to catch burgers and bacon and brats.
I
brown and break up thawed burger patties to blend
with
my special chili powder and garlic in my big stew pot,
then
tells Jimmy behind the bar I need two big pitchers of draft.
After
tossing red beans and browned burger and chopped onions in the pot
I
add a pitcher of beer and spices
stir
in the tomato paste and set it slow simmering.
Sally
and Buddy may have themselves one clean well lit barroom
but
I got me a kitchen―spotless and warm
under
the cold fluorescent lights of
a
cell I choose to do my time in.
I
pull up a polished schooner as the second pitcher
bubbles
rise for the tired but happy cook.
Poet’s
Notes: In my
misspent youth, I worked for a time at a tavern tending bar and in the kitchen.
I much preferred the kitchen, as it gave me the sense that I could eventually
make my surroundings clean and orderly, whereas when tending bar I heard the
same sad stories, over and over again, from broken people I would never have
any hope of fixing. I cooked chicken in a Broaster, which is a deep-fat
pressure cooker. Because of the pressure, the oil is heated to a lower temperature
than a regular deep fryer, which results in the oil lasting longer. Tavern
kitchens are a more enjoyable place to work than busy fast-food restaurants or
sit-down restaurants, because they are not so hectic. Tavern food is designed
to keep people drinking, not to give them a five-star meal or feed a herd of
teens in minutes.
Editor’s Notes: A strong voice in a poem is a pleasure. A consistent voice puts me in another world. I love the voice of this reformed convict, and I wish him well in his spic and span tavern kitchen. CAS
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Grandma's
Realm
free
verse
Tyson
West
Not
ever―even as Anna and I spoke as adults of marriage
during
my visit before my Virginia nuptials
three
years after grandpa died―
did
I see her eat.
Her
father's second wife must have imprinted fiercely
the
old country taboo that women must serve a table
of
all men then wait until they rise
for
smoking and to sip starka and krupnikas
for
the bevy of cooks and waitresses to dine
on
leftovers bonding in table talk.
Perhaps
her mother, who had joined Club 27
in
that pre-penicillin desert, would have pushed
her
to adopt the ways of America.
Still
old country custom served her sex power
to
claim kitchen her undisputed realm where
her
fickle decrees brewed unquestioned.
In
the narrow pantry with shelving full to thwart famine
the
exotic scent of orange pekoe lured me
to
the first taste of tea mother forbade
but
Grandma muted my sips with unpasteurized cream, fresh from the barn.
My
fidgeting matured at the great, oil cloth covered table
as
my flesh distorted from toe-headed toddler
to
insecure stripling to gangling college cobber
like
some Hogarthian progression.
I
admired Anna forming fire in her great Monarch
wood
cook stove lifting black iron plates
to
charge the grate with newspaper and kindling split
from
the wood pile by the barn.
The
room grew hotter once she struck
the
Diamond kitchen match to yesterday's news
as
draft sucked the smell of sulfur up the chimney.
Yellow
cardamom bread matrixing golden raisins,
potato
blynais, and kugelis with sour cream fed me
as
my uncles' bellies rounded the trencher
boasting
with a wink over Nargansett Long Necks of "finding"
among
tract homes under construction after the Big War
Anna's
gas range they installed beside the Monarch.
She
would scold me old country worries, "Eat! Eat!
Valgyti
Sūnelis! I don't want you to die in my house!"
Well
buttered black bread and homemade
farmer
cheese she pressed between oak planks
kept
me firmly among the quick.
But
a decade after my visit her soul slipped
from
the bedroom off the kitchen where a half century before
she
chose to sleep alone while Grandpa snored upstairs.
For
my last supper in the room she ruled
around
her casket set on the great table, uncles
and
we cousins bantered in English over catered cold cuts,
pizza,
and burgers their wives selected.
As
her boxed up body left to rejoin Grandpa
her
kitchen wilted―emptied of its elemental spirit.
Though
Google tells me our homestead still stands
I
choose not to visit the husk of plaster and lead based paint
but
to remember the alchemy of elixirs that swirled there once
and
the young girl who dwindled down the decades
across
her bridge from rattle boned Baltic lowlands
where
sandy soil wraps skeletons of our ancestors
to
ever changing American excess
where
flesh of the flesh she once fed
spreads
across the fruited plains.
Poet’s
Notes: My paternal
grandparents both came from Lithuania. Grandfather arrived in 1906, and his
unknown wife in 1914. They met and married in Massachusetts. She was less than
five feet tall, but she ruled the kitchen like a queen. She prepared a lot of
old country recipes with saturated fats and carbohydrates, which were valuable
because they kept you alive in the unstable world of Eastern Europe, where you
weren't sure when famine would strike. Only later did I learn why none of us
ever saw her eat. She was raised in a paternal world where men ate first.
Editor’s Notes: As America is such a multi-cultural, melting pot country, old ways, tucked into the homes of immigrants, still live, old ways that survive a generation, or two, or sometimes more. The kitchen is where many of those old ways are kept alive. These food ways are recipes that contain a bit of lore, a smack of wisdom, even a hint of cooking magic. West’s poem catches the hint of magic and brings it to life. CAS
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Other Frequent Contributors
The
Oldest Form of Hate
free
verse narrative
Shlomo
Ben Moshe HaLevi
This
was to be a special occasion.
My
mother’s father was coming for Passover!
Grandfather
was first generation Irish,
A
devout Catholic, and was not at all pleased
When
his eldest daughter married a Jew.
Neither
he nor my grandmother attended their wedding.
Relations
between him and my parents were—to be polite—strained.
By
this time, my parents had been married for ten years.
I
was nine. My little brother was seven.
I
sat at the kitchen table while my mother prepared the food.
She
made the chicken soup from scratch
Using
a bird purchased from a family farm up the road.
She
had lovingly cultivated the dill in our backyard garden.
Mom
used my father’s aunt’s recipe for the matzoh balls.
She
rendered the fat from the chicken skin for schmaltz
And
fried minced onions in this golden goodness.
Its
savory scent filled the kitchen with love.
The
schmaltz and onions were added to the matzoh ball batter.
She
did this instead of frying the balls in it.
While
my great aunt’s matzoh balls were better,
My
mom’s were a close second,
Fluffy
and floating in the soup despite the added ingredients.
There
would be potato kugel, charoset (I helped chop the apples),
Tzimmes,
and leg of lamb—again, from our neighbor’s farm.
In
addition to a flourless apple cake, my mother made vanilla pudding for dessert,
Even
though it would violate the milk/meat law.
She
knew that her father enjoyed vanilla pudding,
And,
while the entire meal had to be perfect,
The
pudding had to be especially so.
Hence,
it was especially tragic when Mom accidentally added
A
heap of chicken-fried onions to the pudding.
Maybe
she mistook the pudding for the matzoh ball batter?
This
was the first time that I recall ever seeing my mother cry.
However,
there was nothing else for it—
Grandfather
would be arriving in a few minutes.
I
suggested that the onions were so small that they would go unnoticed
And
that fried onions would be sweet, like the pudding.
Maybe
she could pass it off as tapioca?
These
culinary tips from me made Mom laugh—a rarity for her.
My
parents greeted Grandfather at the door.
He
and Dad shook hands, but I could tell neither was pleased to do so.
We
sat down for dinner at once and began the “seder” that was not a real seder.
My
father, brother, and I could not wear yarmulkes,
There
were no Haggadahs, and there was absolutely to be no praying,
Unless
Grandfather wanted to pray to Jesus, which, of course, he did,
And
he made quite a show of it.
The
feast normally would have started with gefilte fish—
The
most ethnic of ethnic foods—
But
Mom knew better than to offer such blatantly Jewish cuisine.
We
began with the matzoh ball soup instead—
Fluffy
clouds surrounded by liquid gold.
Grandfather
did not touch a drop.
Then
came the lamb, the kugel, and all the rest.
Grandfather
did not take a single bite of any of it.
My
little brother was oblivious,
But
I could see the hurt in my mother’s eyes.
Would
it have killed Grandfather to eat the lovely meal prepared in his honor?
Apparently,
Grandfather thought it would,
As
though eating Jew-food would turn him into a Jew,
Which
for him would be the worst thing ever.
My
father was a Holocaust survivor, and recently shared with his eldest son
Just
a taste of the horrors that he lived through when he was my age.
Even
his sugar-coated version was enough to give me nightmares.
So,
I knew a little bit about antisemitism, but this was my first experience of it.
Ironically,
the only food that Grandfather ate that night was the pudding—
Onions
and all.
Poet’s
Notes: In 2023, the
terrorist organization Hamas invaded Israel and tortured, raped, and killed
over 1,200 innocent people, including children, and took 250 more as captives,
many of whom are presumed dead. Israel responded with and continues to respond
with deadly force, as would any other nation or people. I pray that the war
will not end until every member of Hamas is disarmed and killed, imprisoned, or
exiled (and not to my country, please). That is not hate. That is justice.
According to The Anti-Defamation League,
there were a record 9,354 incidents of antisemitism in the United States in
2024, a 5% increase from 2023 and an astounding 893% increase over the past 10
years. Vandalism against Jewish businesses and institutions increased by 20%
and assaults by 21% in 2024. Incidents on college campuses saw a dramatic 84%
increase in antisemitism in 2024. A significant portion of antisemitic
incidents have occurred and continue to occur online and in social media.
The
impact on Jewish Americans has been staggering. Most admit to feeling less safe
and have altered their behavior due to fear of antisemitism. Personally, I have
removed the mezuzah from the entry to my home and have advised my wife and
children to be careful of what they say in public.
While
I am disappointed in my countrymen, sadly, I am not surprised. As my father
knew only too well, antisemitism, the oldest form of hate, is always lurking in
the population at large. The war in Gaza has only sparked the latest surge.
Editor’s Notes: A pressure cooker doesn’t have to explode for disaster to occur in a kitchen. Gordon takes me into human prejudices, the tensions that can develop, the pressure that can build, the sadness that can reign, around the festive table of lovingly prepared food. CAS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the Garage Apartment Kitchen
free
verse
Vivian
Finley Nida
Summer’s
oppressive heat
thought
it could conquer
Mama’s
small, square kitchen.
It
blasted through raised windows
and
forced oscillating fans to riddle
the
air with searing breath.
Jelly
glasses of sweet iced tea,
sprigged
with mint, sweated.
Strawberry
popsicles dripped,
and
we sticky sisters, two and four,
wiggled
out of shoes, shirts, shorts.
Mama
saw all, imagined more.
She
shoved table and chairs out,
then
armed with Tide and a wet broom,
scrubbed
and rinsed the linoleum floor.
We
watched her sweep water under
the
screen door and down a dozen steps
to
the patch of yellow grass beyond.
With
a five gallon aluminum pan
filled
to the brim, she commanded,
“Strip
and dive in!”
We
tossed our panties,
jumped
in and fell flat,
slammed
by a tsunami.
Barely
standing, another surge swept
us
into a whirlpool. We escaped, but
a
rogue wave tumbled us like tadpoles.
Shrieking
with laughter,
wave
after wave, we reveled
in
this realm of endless possibility.
Poet’s
Notes: A year later we moved into a house that had
window unit air conditioners. We liked the way they kept us cool but
missed our kitchen water park.
Editor’s Notes: I’m right there with the child in this poem. I remember summer days when we sat in front of the kitchen window where the box fan was humming. The fan moved the hot air around, but did nothing to cool it. I love this mother’s creativity and her willingness to work extra hard to provide some moments of both relief and joy. CAS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Grandpa’s
Kitchen Stove
free
verse narrative poem
Howard
F. Stein
At
age ten how could I have known
When
I entered my grandpa’s kitchen,
I
was walking into a hundred years ago?
My
maternal grandpa lived in the apartment
Across
the hall from ours, where
His
daughter, her husband, and son,
Mom,
dad, and I, lived.
Any
1950s’ futuristics of sleek design,
Bright
colors, automation, stainless steel,
And
open space failed to make their way
Into
his cramped, cracked linoleum kitchen.
But
still, small miracles
Of
aroma and taste made their way
From
here to his adjacent dining room.
The
kitchen’s centerpiece was
A
massive, iron, boxy natural gas
Stove
and oven. Weight and weightiness
Defined
it. Oven and broiler
Doors
were heavy to open and close.
At
this magnificent massif,
Grandpa
did all his cooking,
From
a daily morning percolator
Of
coffee to a Sunday morning
Specialty
of slow-cooked oatmeal
In
a cracked porcelain double boiler.
If
heavy metal can be cozy,
His
kitchen stove was.
Immigrant
from Russia
In
his early teens, grandpa
Created
a nest in his orange-brick
Apartment
building built around 1900.
Though
it looked old fashioned,
I
had no interest in fashion.
For
me, the timing was perfect –
With
him, his kitchen, and his
Great
gas stove.
Lighting
the gas stove burners
And
the broiler and oven
To
their left, required
Precision
and courage,
Science
and art,
With
a lit match –
Talents
I sorely lacked.
No
permanent pilot light
Here;
fire was labor intensive.
I
pressed the button
On
the front of the stove,
Which
released gas,
Quickly
struck a match
On
a flint strip, then tossed
The
lit match into the center
Of
the stove, hoping the burners
Would
ignite. Occasionally
My
cowardice worked.
Mostly,
though, the match would
Extinguish
before gas came on.
Reluctantly,
I would have to hover
The
lit match in my hand,
Wait
for a flame to emerge,
Then
get out of the way.
Most
of the time flames would
Burst
several inches upward,
I
rarely pulled
My
hand back fast enough.
I
do not remember getting burned,
But
each time I was scared.
Still,
it became a game
I
returned to play several times
A
week on my grandpa’s
Cast
iron stove.
In
addition to silken oatmeal,
Sunday
mornings were also
The
day when grandpa toasted Challah*
In
the oven to last a week –
Baked
to his doting
Perfection
of both sides
Of
the slice, evenly browned
To
a crisp, rarely burned.
He
doted over his toasting
Bread
as a devoted mother
Her
children. His toast was
Perfect
for dunking in
Freshly
percolated coffee.
Sunday
morning breakfasts
With
grandpa were a feast.
I
could swear there were
Times
I saw him
Dance
with that oven.
It
was his moment,
Which
I watched nearby
With
awe.
This
sturdy kitchen stove
Had
presence, character.
The
“clunker” was majestic.
Grandpa’s
stove
Was
a titan – so was he.
I
savored being
Behind
the times
In
his kitchen.
The
times were just right –
They
were his. They were mine.
They
were ours.
*Egg-based,
yeast-leavened Bread, often braided, an eastern European Jewish staple
Poet’s
Notes: When I
discovered that the theme for the Summer 2025 issue of Songs of Eretz would
be Kitchens, I was momentarily at an utter loss for any idea for a poem that
was not trite. Soon an image of the massive old gas stove in my maternal
grandpa's kitchen redeemed my paralysis. It was a Presence for me since as far
back as memory allows. I was born in 1946, and my beloved grandpa died in 1962.
He lived in the apartment across the hallway from that of my mom, dad, and me.
In a world that could change -- usually for the worse -- in an eye-blink, this
stove, like my grandpa, had solidity, even permanence, inscribed on the
manufacturer's label. Although the stove was not beautiful, it exuded
magnificence. "Built to last" could have been its motto.
Whatever
it "symbolized," it was also the dwelling place of bustling activity,
grandpa's, mine, ours together. Relationships were part of
its essence. Its history was, at least in part, our history.
Editor’s Notes: We find memory in objects. As taste and smell are also depositories of memory, how fitting that a stove, even a massive iron gas stove, should become a focal point of delicious memories. CAS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Baked
Eggplant in the Kitchen with Mom
narrative
poem
Howard F. Stein
Every
few months, mom –
Who
did not especially relish cooking –
Made
one of her specialties:
Baked
eggplant. She made sure
To
puncture it before baking,
Because
it once exploded
In
the oven because she forgot
(We never
forgot the mess.).
She
pulled out the tray
That
held the cooked eggplant,
Peeled
the skin; then it was
Ready
for my turn.
I
retrieved from deep
In
a kitchen drawer,
The
galvanized iron parts
I
first had to assemble,
Clamp
to the metal kitchen table,
Install
the long, curved handle
Beneath
the chamber where
The
eggplant would go,
And
finally be ready to crank.
Mom and
I bantered while
I
stuffed the eggplant slices,
Followed
by chunks of onion,
And
cranked away. We enjoyed
It
all, though it was a lot
Of
messy work. After I ground
The
eggplant and onions,
My
hands deliciously slimy,
I
slowly poured it all into a large bowl,
To
which mom added vegetable oil
And
various spices – then mixed
It
into a homogeneous, pungently
Aromatic
masterpiece. It was ready
For mom,
dad, and I to feast on.
Mom’s
cheerful company was part
Of
our work together; she said she added
Love
to make this Eastern European
Jewish
delicacy taste better.
Even
dad, always ready to be critic,
Complimented mom as
he
Took
a second helping.
We
were all relaxed, and for now,
Enjoyed
each other’s company,
A
rare ease of being together.
No
signs in the kitchen today
Of
the darkness that enveloped
So
much of mom’s life, and ours . . .
Over
many years, I would find
Mom sitting
immobile,
Head
drooped down,
For
hours on the living room couch,
A
graveyard monument
Among
the living, unreachable
By
voice or touch,
Inconsolable,
lost in an
Inner
space I could not comprehend.
I
despaired at her despair, and
At
my helplessness to help her –
Or
myself. Mom alive. Mom dead.
Mom dead
while alive. Not a
Logic
exercise or multiple choice.
I
wanted to yell: “Wake up mom.
I
need you!” Silence. Am I
Already
dead, too? Where is
My mom of
baking eggplant
In
the kitchen, so much alive?
Then,
there were mom’s
Screaming
tirades at me,
Fortissimo, furioso –
I
did not know then not
To
argue back even more harshly,
About
some misdeed I had committed,
Or
that simply I had been born,
Her
frequent refrain: “First my father,
Then
my husband, now You!”
Despots
all, despicable, irredeemable.
Worse
than her yelling fits were
What
she called the “silent treatment” –
Refusing
to speak with me for days,
Even
weeks. Abandoned in her presence.
I
did not know how to live
Beyond
reclamation by my own mom.
Over
the years, mom disappeared
From
the apartment.
All
dad would tell me
Was
that she was “sick.”
I
didn’t know why she left,
And
why she was gone so long,
Sometimes
for weeks, at
Some
place called a mental hospital.
I
understood nothing of all this
Back
then, and little more now.
I
only know that I felt we
Lived
at the edge of a steep cliff.
But
then . . . there were those
Occasional
baked eggplant days
With mom in
the kitchen,
Lighthearted
exchanges,
Or
no need for words at all.
Gentle
dotted lines connected us –
Us,
my lifeline.
I
knew only that in the kitchen,
I
felt alive again,
No
menace, no vigilance,
A
brief spell of joy and relief –
At
least for an instant,
I
had my mom back.
Poet’s
Notes: When I
learned of the Kitchen theme, a memory--image, followed by a virtual reliving,
entered my mind. It soon took the form of this poem. As a boy in the 1950's, I
would help my mom make baked eggplant salad a couple of times each year.
Those were moments of simple, pleasant ordinariness in our often emotionally
trying lives. The poem could not end without a descent into that terrible
darkness. The poem turned into an unbearable contrast between the quiet bliss
in the kitchen and the long spells of deep depression that engulfed her, and
made her unreachable.
Editor’s Notes: “I despaired at her despair,” so writes Stein. That feeling of unrelieved helplessness has overwhelmed me on more than one occasion. This is a poem to make a reader ponder. This is a poem to make a reader sad. This is a poem to make a reader hunger for a redeemer. CAS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
World War II Weekly Food Ration
Per Person Per Week, Great Britain 1940-1954
free
verse / prose poem
Terri
Lynn Cummings
“Yes, we have no bananas!”
--lyrics
written by Frank Silver & Irving Cohn*
a 1923 novelty song about a greengrocer
that Mr. Silver had met, who started every sentence
with “yes,” even if the answer was “no”
In
Belfast, Ireland, Granny walked
to
the greengrocer every Friday,
ration
books in hand.
Mr.
Murphy, do you have bananas this week?
Och,
did you not read the sign, luv?
It’s
posted on every grocer’s window
in
Belfast. It reads, “Yes, we have no bananas;
We
have no bananas today.”And before ye ask,
yes,
we have no lemons, oranges, pineapples,
grapes,
apples, or onions, though we fare better
than
those poor souls starving on the continent.”
Every
week, Granny partially filled her kitchen larder with food allotted to those
living under her roof. That meant my mother was allowed:
1
egg
2
oz. tea
2
oz. butter
1
oz. cheese
8
oz. sugar
4
oz. ea. bacon, ham, margarine, cooking fat
1/2
lb. of jam (per month, mind you)
3
pints of milk (plus a wee extra as a growing child)
0
bottles of wine (for cooking or otherwise)
Breakfasts
were the highlight of the week. Before church, Mother and Aunt Annie sat at the
kitchen table their father had built and shared an egg ration--yoke
for one, white
for
the other. A tradition was born, and it never varied.
In
our kitchens today, our mothers’ grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and
great-great-grandchildren share fried eggs amongst themselves, only eating the
yolks or whites.
When
bananas finally arrived in the shipyard after the war, Mother, ‘sweet sixteen,’
appeared front page in Belfast Telegraph, banana in hand.
Granny
held a cup of steaming tea
(with
a proper pour of milk and a dash
of
sugar, mind you), newspaper spread
on
the kitchen table, a dish of butter
proud
in the center, and read
“Yes,
we have some bananas;
We
have some bananas today!”
Poet’s
Notes: “Yes, we
have no bananas” was the theme song used during food relief protests against
the crown in Belfast, 1932. During that depression, Catholics and Protestants
were united in protest, a rarity. The non-sectarian song was widely known in
both communities. The term was used repeatedly, including the mandatory
rationing in WWII.
*
The song’s sheet music entered the public domain in the United States, January
1, 2019. The 1923 recordings entered the public domain in the United States on
January 1, 2024.
Editor’s Notes: Give me history. Give me a song. Give me something to eat. What a glorious mixture in one poem! CAS
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Brown Bread
haiku
stanzas (5-7-5 syllabic poem)
Charles A. Swanson
Basement
apartment
in
Chatmoss, unlike Grandma’s
hole
of a cellar.
This
one, full kitchen,
living
space, sliding glass doors
onto
a green lawn.
Ed
Kinser, bachelor,
young
botany professor,
set
out the dinner,
Swiss
cheese and crackers—
Chicken
in a Biskit, odd,
delicious
tid-bits,
two
strong tastes married,
but
that wasn’t all. Brown loaves
rich
with molasses,
corn
meal, plump raisins,
shaped brown loaves
like cylinders,
scores
laid evenly,
a
coffee can’s marks.
I
couldn’t get enough bread,
the
earthy whole wheat,
juicy,
sweet raisins,
sulfur
of dark molasses.
And
the weirdest thing,
the
loaves, not baked, boiled
two
and a half, three hours
in
a stovetop pot,
the
steam rising high,
heating
inexpensive cans.
I
think of campfires,
coals,
iron kettles,
a
hiker shrewd in old ways,
wild
greens, rustic bread.
It
smacked a wild, strange
disconnect--to
taste the old
in
a new kitchen.
Poet’s Notes: I begged this recipe, and I still make it from time to time. Coffee cans are harder to find than they used to be. I especially like to boil the brown bread on a woodstove (not a true wood cookstove), although the temperature of such a primitive stove is hard to control.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meal
Planning
syllabic
poem (seven syllables per line)
Charles A.
Swanson
I
filled each meal, breakfast, lunch,
supper,
a calendar month—
menu
on the kitchen wall.
Fried
rabbit, gravy, biscuits.
Turnip
greens, new potatoes.
Brunswick
stew, canned tomatoes.
Silver
dollar pancakes, jam.
King’s
syrup, butter, fresh bread.
Million
dollar fudge, cookies.
Milk,
Ovaltine malt powder.
Jello,
fruit cocktail, cherries.
Peanuts,
walnuts, strawberries.
Something
to eat every day,
something
good three times a day,
something
nutritious to serve.
So
I filled a calendar,
breakfast,
lunch, early supper,
meat,
vegetables, fruit, drink.
I
took the ache from planning
and
you followed my menu
as
if I, a teenager,
were
wise. And I must tell you
I
was tempted by desserts
and
spaghetti. Every day
I
wanted rich meaty sauce,
spaghetti
noodles piled high,
crisp-toasted
bread and butter.
Mom,
you trusted me to have
brains.
Oh, I tried so hard not
to
script each day with sugar.
Poet’s Notes: In a Progressive Insurance commercial, a representative for the company gives a commencement speech to graduates. She says, “Today, you enter the real world.” Then she names chore after chore that forewarns the graduates. Life is hard. Their lives will be full of tedium and repetition. The last chore she names is this: “Deciding what’s for dinner every night, for the rest of your life.” That was one of my mother’s complaints, deciding what to cook. She said she didn’t mind cooking, but she hated meal planning. Oddly, she welcomed the calendar I made for her one month, even though I was only a ravenous teenager. I couldn’t believe how assiduously she stuck to the meals I listed, especially since she knew so much more about cooking than I did.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Wild
Gatherings: Persimmon Pulp
free
verse
Charles
A. Swanson
The
orange that oozes from the colander,
more
burnt orange than plastic pumpkin
orange,
more jeweled and more deep,
more
translucent and more thick, pulp,
pulp
thicker than apple butter, sweeter
than
peaches, more bitter than the bite
of
lemon rind. American persimmons,
wild
for the finding, finding before dogs
and
raccoons and foxes and possums and
skunks
and deer and crows and mockingbirds and
did
I say dogs, yes, dogs eat them up.
Persimmons
that make the best pudding—
if
you can use the pulp like Mama did—
pudding
deep, dark, layered, spicy, sweet,
with
texture and tenderness in each bite.
Oh,
it looked like brownies, and fooled
the
help, the teenagers who came to pull
the
late summer and early fall harvest—
the
yellowing tobacco leaves. The pudding—
cake-like
but moist and succulent—looked
like
brownies, but the help had never, never
had
a brownie that took them so deep
into
the lore, into eating from the land.
Poet’s Notes: I’m working on a series of “wild gatherings” poems. Most of them involve some food item, whether vegetable, animal, or fruit. A few delve into food history. Not all of the poems reach the kitchen. Some stay in the field, in the place even wilder than the kitchen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Guest Poets
So…We
Bake Cakes Then…
free
verse
Sean
Whalen
In
our lead story… today’s Combat Cake Wars
winner
crafted a lime mint Tabasco frosting
over
a delicate cocoa sponge. A strong uppercut,
along
with heat and sweet, won the day.
Meanwhile,
in other news… multiple
shots
were fired and responders removed
bodies
from in front of the Safeway,
allowing
procurement of critical baking ingredients.
Overseas… reports
were received of various “isms”
in
developed and developing nations, along with
riots
and deaths and tariffs, leading to unconscionable
price
increases for cocoa and vanilla.
In
the weather… drought and heat waves
are
negatively impacting crop production. Farming towns
are
shuttering and folks are migrating to the suburbs,
further
driving up the cost of masa and flour.
On
a brighter note… record tropical rainfall
caused
catastrophic flooding and wiped out houses,
buildings,
and people, thereby dramatically
increasing
the sugar cane yield.
And
finally, in sports… Combat Cake Wars
has
been renewed for another season,
though
most previous winners are unable to return
due
to death or serious injury.
Poet’s
Notes: Entertainment parallels society. Rousseau (not Marie
A.) introduced eating brioche in lieu of bread when starving. We’ve taken that
cliché to heart. We look for alternatives to reality, and while our reality
gets darker so do our alternatives. I figure it’s just a matter of time before
CCW [carry a concealed weapon, ed. note] gets green-lighted. I don’t expect
credit or residuals.
Editor’s
Notes: News reporting has often striven for an objective
tone. The cold hard facts have
subjective power. How do we receive the
news? How do we place the news in
context so that we then examine our own failings, our own utterly limited view
of the world? Whalen’s poem strikes an
objective tone, but it comes across with subjective force. The poem is an excellent example of dramatic
irony. CAS
About the Poet: Sean Whalen lives near Pilot Mound, Iowa, with his exceptional wife, Bonnie, five house cats, and a wild three-legged barn cat named Frodo. He is a retired health and safety professional, current volunteer fire chief, and bales hay for bait money. He received his MA from Iowa State in Creative Writing. Recent poems have appeared in multiple publications, including Last Leaves, The Ocotillo Review, Unbroken, New Feathers, Thimble, The Avenue Journal, The Chiron Review, and Songs of Eretz.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Preservation
free
verse
Melanie
Faith
A
friend
whose mother has passed on
turns the front door with the old key
her mother once wore on her wrist
on a little plastic bracelet
made like curly old telephone cord.
She says a water pipe burst
recently while she was at
her other home with her husband and children
and the water from the burst pipe rained upon
all the beautiful glass jars
in the empty house:
peaches
pears
grapes made into juices
strawberry jams and blackberry jellies
plums sweeter than
bread-and-butter pickles, and some of those,
too, along with slaws, peas, and green beans
grown in the backyard
all of it sealed
in heavy glass Ball jars
in orderly rows on basement shelving
her father built
awaiting future weekday lunches, dinners, birthday
get-togethers, engagements, church suppers,
anniversary
parties decades
ago.
All of it, my friend says, she found last week
when she came to check the furnace,
all of it she found ruined, a feast
for no one, and she’s come to clean it
with bucket, soap, sponges, and black bags
she’ll cart back with her.
I want to say, Can we still feast
upon remembrances of your mother’s handiwork
in the kitchen before air conditioning
in her short green shorts, sometimes
on a stepstool to reach the spice cupboard?
She’d clipped her hair up at the nape
and stand, glasses fogging over, before steam
her face bathed dewy
in July and August perspiration
and yet persevered at her task:
hand-cutting
each peel, carving out
each pit, removing
every soft spot and tan bruise so that
each sip, gulp, chew, and
chomp was easy to enjoy,
was more than fit to celebrate,
was a story kind of sustenance.
I, who am so lucky to still have my mother
and someday too soon—always too soon—won’t,
I know, though, what my friend wants back,
more than canned sweets and savories
has nothing to do with ruined food,
has no way of ever returning
to give her a hug, to give her
what she hungers for. So she’ll
sweep up the sticky syrups, bits of rust and glass,
she’ll sigh again as she locks the door
with the bracelet key on her way out.
Poet
Notes: I have many memories of my mother, grandmother, and
friends’ moms canning fruits and vegetables. The beautiful sights, scents, and
sounds of the long process always yielded kitchen counters full of the glistening,
gorgeous produce in see-through glass jars, They were a work of art,
momentarily cooling with towels folded underneath them to catch
any glass breaks or spills.
Later, the jars were jewels lined
up on basement shelving. They were sustenance for the long, harsh winter
months. My guess is that many homes with basements built in the 1950s to early
1990s most likely still have a few jars hanging around, whether empty or filled
with food. The little thwupping pop when prying open the jars with a fork
handle for a snack or as part of supper is a sense memory that will resonate
forever.
It was never lost on me, however,
the amount of tough labor, heat, patience, monotony, nicks and scrapes, and
frustration involved in canning, not to mention the huge investment of time, so
it wasn’t something I wanted to learn how to do. My mom stopped canning when I
was in college or grad school. She tells me she doesn’t miss the sweaty summer
toil of it, but we both still reminisce about her delicious homemade grape
juice. No store-bought juice will ever quite compare.
Editor’s
Notes: Faith’s
poem has many cinematic moments. The
poem’s camera eye first zeroes in on the unlocking of a door, to the key
attached to a curly bracelet like an old telephone cord. It is a great defining shot. Immediately, I know this poem will be about a
mother, about a daughter, about a house empty of its long-time occupant. Immediately, I know that some element of loss
will unfold. Soon I’m drawn into the
passion and heartache of many more clearly rendered moments. The narrative in the poem floats on these
excellent, well-rendered scenes. CAS
About the Poet: Melanie Faith is a writer, educator, photographer, and frequent doodler. In 2024, she completed a draw-daily-for-a-year journal and she likes making short comics. Her latest poetry collection, Does It Look Like Her?, follows Alix, a forty-something artist, new educator, and mom, and the famous painting she sits for. Her craft books for authors through Vine Leaves Press offer tips on writing flash fiction, poetry, teaching creative writing, writing a reference book, and photography. Learn more about her writing, teaching, and creative work at: https://www.melaniedfaith.com/
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
free
verse
She
is the matriarch of her household, and she is
cooking
Haleem. But I cannot not go.
Even
though she’s a generous soul, I cannot go.
Her
kitchen overflows with the riches
of
her ladle. To add to my woes, she’s left
her
windows and doors wide open. “Come in,”
they
seem to say. “Just walk in. Walk in, no?!”
Her
table groans, begging to be freed
of
its load. The aroma roams around, stoking
belly
fires everywhere. This is so unfair.
I’ve
a good mind to go down to where the feast
awaits
the deserving. Even though
I
don’t own a single pious bone in my body.
She
won’t mind. I know. She will embrace me.
She
will say, “Eat. Eat! Eat some more!” I
can’t
bear this anymore. Just twenty
steps
below, I can hear them gathering.
The
patriarch and she, her sons, her daughters
and
their spouses. Throw in a troupe
of
itinerant cousins, a couple of friends. Faces
aglow.
Head scarves askew. Beards spotted with food.
Oh,
woe to my soul! Woe to my ill-timed
resolution
to shed the kilos. When I could be saying,
“Bas
bas, Shukriya! Only one more helping. No more.”
Poet’s
Notes: Here in
India, at least in my experience, we celebrate the feast days of all religions.
As a Bengali Hindu, I have grown up eating Easter Sunday brunches and Christmas
dinners at the homes of Christian friends, and breaking evening fasts with
Muslim friends during the month of Ramzan/Ramadan, and being an absolute
glutton during their Eid dinners and weddings too. Haleem is a popular dish
which is eaten during 'Iftar,' the fast breaking evening meal during Ramzan/Ramadan.
It is a nutritious dish, aromatic and with a silky texture, that is
slow-cooked with lentils and meat as the main ingredients. I have never
met a Muslim who will not readily share his/her meal with a hungry soul. Their
doors are always open, and during festive times especially, their homes
overflow with family, as well as friends and neighbours regardless of their
religion. There was one time though when I had to deny myself the pleasure and
honour of joining a neighbour's 'iftar' banquet due to a foolish attempt at losing
weight through diet. Never again!
Editor’s Notes: Not only is Shikhandin’s poem brimming with the enticement of food, but it is also culturally enticing. An invitation to eat in the home of the host or hostess is a significant way of inviting the guest into the family circle. It is an intimate invitation. CAS
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
From
My Kitchen Window
free
verse
Shikhandin
Beyond
my little herb garden on the sill,
out
of reach of my mundane routine, my dutiful
morning
tick-tocks, detailing with excruciating
precision
what I try to gloss over each day:
An
old man in a pair of khaki shorts,
newspaper
under one arm, plastic bag
in
the other, urinating against the “No Nuisance Please”
sign
on my neighbour’s compound wall.
A
stout garden lizard’s failed
splotch
of a dodge
in
the path of a school boy’s
determined
bicycle.
Two
united street dogs fox-trotting
first
on the path and then among the refuse
and
the weeds. Unable to extricate
themselves
despite the poorly aimed stone.
A
raggedy old woman breathing
her
last on the wild with grass
sidewalk.
A bottle on its belly draining
its
contents beside her.
Just
another day
outside
my kitchen. The world
rolling
on endlessly. Searching
for
everything and coming up blank.
I
always find time to sit down
with
a soothing cup of tea. Inside
its
pot, the lentils bubble. I am good
at
serving hot and wholesome meals.
Poet's
Notes: I love open windows in my kitchen. The sunlight
flooding in, plants growing out of chipped pottery on the sills and cupboard
tops. An errant butterfly, and on occasion a sunbird or sparrow zipping in and
then out. I can also see the world outside. Sometimes it is a happy world. A
funny world. An indifferent world. Or a sad world. I let the emotion seep
into my skin. And I sit at my dining table with my 'roughbook' for poetry, and
let the ink spill. It is my way of dealing with a world I cannot change. Poetry
is also a form of prayer, a way to connect with something higher than us.
Chronicling one such day in my kitchen life is how I tried to make amendments
on this occasion. And also, offer up my gratitude to whoever is listening out
there.
Editor’s
Notes: A writer I much
admire has advised us poets to “write cold.”
By this, she means to present the images without commentary. The cold view out the window in this poem
strikes me with pity. The view inside
the kitchen, where everything is warm and inviting, strikes me with a similar
pity. I am often confronted with the sad
realization that there is little I can do to bring change. (Sometimes, however, a little goes a long
way.) CAS
About the Poet: Shikhandin is the pen name of an Indian author. Her published books include, Impetuous Women (Penguin-Random House India), Immoderate Men (Speaking Tiger), The Woman on the Red Oxide Floor (Red River Story, India), After Grief – Poems (Red River, India), and Vibhuti Cat (Duckbill-Penguin-Random House India). In 2024 she was shortlisted for the Asian Prize for Short Fiction. She is a two times Pushcart nominee – Aeolian Harp 2019 (USA) and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 2011 (Hong Kong), and a Best of the Net nominee – Yellow Arrow Publishing 2023 (USA). Her other honours include, runner up - George Floyd Short Story Contest 2020 (UK), winner - Children First Contest curated by Duckbill in association with Parag an initiative of Tata Trust in 2017, first prize - Brilliant Flash Fiction Contest 2019 (USA), runner up - Erbacce Poetry Prize 2018 (UK), winner 35th Moon Prize (Writing in a Woman's Voice: USA), first Runner up - The DNA-OoP Short Story Contest 2016 (India), second prize - India Currents Katha Short Story Contest 2016 (USA), first prize winner Anam Cara Short Fiction Competition 2012 (Ireland), long list - Bridport Poetry Prize 2006 (UK) and finalist - Aesthetica Poetry Contest 2010 (UK). Shikhandin’s prose and poetry have been widely published in India and abroad in online and print journals and anthologies.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Halfway
House
couplets
Salvatore
Difalco
Humility
chose the color scheme.
Dry
catsup and gallbladder green.
The
floors bear tarry skid marks.
A
dark figure hunches at the grill.
Scorched
garlic themes the air
and
a greasy prickly scum-mist.
Please,
maintain your sensitivity.
But
also maintain objectivity.
Break
bread with these artists
of
misery but say nothing to them.
Let
the master of sanctimony
mutter
grace before you feast.
He
holds all the keys.
He
keeps all tongues beating.
An
honest study of everyday
half-life
comes with a price.
Would
that art could portray
the
poverty of spirit without one.
Editor’s
Notes: Many
sentences in this poem stop me. I go
back and read them again. I find the
imperatives, as well as the philosophic musings, well worth pondering. CAS
Poet’s Notes: For years I worked with at-risk youth and young adults in several institutions and facilities. The kitchen experience for them was a little different than the one I enjoyed growing up in a loving and warm Sicilian family. As I was writing another piece commemorating that very childhood, I thought about the shattered young lives I encountered in my work and how as a society and a species we have failed them.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Summer
free
verse
My
mother is summer.
She
stands in the kitchen smiling sweet green peas.
Her
cucumber nose is not the zucchini
it
seems. Ears of corn, yes, yes,
and
husky garlic bulbs for earrings.
O
to be blessed with her splendid hearing.
Her
cheeks are Grimsby peaches,
rosy
in fuzz and fragrant as the sun.
Her
raspberry lips set off the reddening pear
of
her chin. Where do I begin
with
the hair? mounted thick with vetch
and
cabbage leaf and crispy cresses.
When
she waves me into the kitchen
with
her fleshy artichoke hands
and
offers me nectarines yanked from her back,
I
feel strange but full
of
thanks for my horn of plenty mother,
more
summer in summer than summer.
Poet’s
Notes: This poem emerged from a fusion of fond
memories of my childhood summers in southern Ontario and the strange fruit and
vegetable paintings of the Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. My Sicilian
mother had a fruit and vegetable garden in our backyard that always yielded an
astonishing amount of produce for such a tiny plot. I've always associated her
with warmth and bounty and something profoundly organic and real. But also fun.
My mother, rest her soul, was a lot of fun.
Editor’s
Notes: When
this poem arrived in my inbox, the date coincided with Mother’s Day. I thought, “How delightful that Difalco’s
poem should meet the kitchen theme but also pay such wonderful tribute to his
mother.” This is my kind of magical
realism. I see the mother, not despite
the fruits and vegetables, but because of the fruits and vegetables. (Terri Cummings and I allowed ourselves one
“editor’s pick,” and this poem is mine.)
CAS
About the Poet: Salvatore Difalco is the author of five books, including The Mountie at Niagara Falls (Anvil Press), an illustrated collection of microfiction. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
free
verse
Brushing
away
the
granular history
of my kitchen:
Bread
crumbs, Broken glass,
Coffee
grounds, Bandaid,
Your hair, My
nail, Spills
from interrupted
Meals,
Silverfish, Spider leg
I
take it all in
in
repeated strokes,
mediating details
into one story
to be tossed.
Sweeping
Wept
Swept
Poet’s
Notes: The kitchen: Heart of the house. Sweeping: a
meditative or nervous response to experience. Sweeping my kitchen was one of
the ways I processed the heartache of a scrapped marriage.
Editor’s
Notes: Kitchens
and bathrooms, the two rooms that require the most cleaning. How appropriate that Woolman should remind us
of the mess, the mess full of daily living and not just cooking, that fills the
kitchen floor. I also applaud the
reminder of sorrow we get with the word “wept.”
The broom sweeps out the mess, but not the ache. CAS
About
the Poet: Robin Woolman is a teacher of physical theater in
Portland, Oregon. She dates her passion for writing back to Miss Mataroli’s
second grade class…More recent poems and plays have appeared in Cirque, Deep
Wild, Poeming Pigeon, Westchester Review, Of a Certain Age,
Tiny Seed, Ecotheo, and Oregon Poetry Calendars.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What She Knows
free
verse
Tonight
when the window pane
tells
the moon hello, the
bread
in the loaf
swells
a little, though not
with
pride.
Her
hands revel in how
it
feels to knead its knots,
flatten
its dough, roll it from
hand
to hand until
it
is covered by
her
signature strokes.
When
she slips it
in
the oven, she sees through
the
picture window
how
the heat goes on and on
in
a constant current like a heart,
one
that transports what's raw
to
another country, where
the
air is always warm and heavy
and
the scent is, in this special
bread,
apple-smart,
cinnamon-taught,
ready for
its
true-blue plate and
the
steady tongue
where
it sits
like
the sun going down.
Poet's
Note:
"What She Knows" is a meditation on what the making of bread means to
the author.
Editor’s
Notes: In this quiet poem, I catch notes of hope and
longing. What is “raw” is soothed a bit,
given lift and faith, in the humble task of making bread. The poem makes me think of Robert Frost’s “Bereft,”
a poem I have long admired. CAS
About
the Poet: Llewellyn
McKernan is a poet and children’s book writer. She has a Master’s Degree
in English
from
the University of Arkansas and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Brown
University. She has authored seven
poetry books for adults: Short and Simple Annals, Many
Waters, Llewellyn McKernan’s Greatest Hits, Pencil
Memory, Getting Ready To Travel, The Sound of One Tree
Falling, and The Manifesto and Its Blue Ball. Her poems
have been published in many literary magazines, sixty anthologies, and has won
101 prizes, awards, and honors on state, regional, and national levels. Her
writing mantra is based on a quote from the French author, Colette: “Look
long and hard at what
gives you the most pleasure, but look even longer and harder at what gives you the most pain.”
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tehran: Friday Lunches Before and After
the Revolution
free
verse
Before,
we kept our windows wide open.
Curtains
billowed, bellowing befarma’id—welcome!
Before,
together, we stemmed bunches of herbs
for
braises—best of all, fenugreek for ghormeh sabzi.
Bitter
if you use too much.
Better
if it’s someone else’s offering,
freeing
you to bask in familial bonds and banter,
besotted
by fenugreek’s inviting aroma drifting
into
the bustling street below,
becoming
one with the neighbors’ fenugreek,
an
olfactory sisterhood.
Fenugreek
became a lingering guest,
Burrowing
into crevices,
oozing
out of pores the next day—
small
bother for a blessed memory.
After,
windows remain closed—basteh.
No
billowing, no bellowing.
A
bitter taste lingers at the back of the throat,
bile
of regret,
bile
of what if,
bile
of if only.
Bas
e—enough!
Boro—begone!
Open
the borrowed microwave
in
the borrowed country.
Breathe
in fenugreek. Blessed memory.
Befarma’id.
Editor’s
Notes: The
kitchen, no matter its size or its appliances, is the kitchen around the
world. I am invited to smell and taste
the notes the kitchen sends as offerings.
I am invited to sorrow when the kitchen is closed off, when its gift of
fellowship is shuttered. I become a
citizen, however briefly, of a war-torn country. CAS
About the Poet: Ellen Estilai received her bachelor’s degree in art from the University of California at Davis and her master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Tehran (Iran). Formerly the executive director of the Riverside Arts Council and the Arts Council for San Bernardino County, she has taught English in universities in Iran and California. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she has published in numerous journals and anthologies, including New California Writing 2011; Snapdragon; Ink & Letters; Heron Tree; (In)Visible Memoirs 2; HOME: Tall Grass Writers Guild Anthology; Shark Reef; Lady Liberty Lit; Riddled with Arrows; Sheila-Na-Gig; Verse Virtual, and Fiolet & Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulist Poetry, among others. In 2023, she published Exit Prohibited, a memoir (Inlandia Institute) and a chapbook, The Museum of Missing Things (Jamii Publishing). Because Estilai and her husband have been immigrants in each other's countries, her writing frequently explores the joys and tribulations of the immigrant experience.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Long-Gone
Kitchen
iambic
quatrains, ABAB rhyme
Paul
A. Freeman
Great
wonders in the kitchen once occurred,
like
homemade rhubarb crumble, Christmas pud,
a
Sunday roast, the festive season bird
with
veggies from the garden, fresh and good.
I
washed and dried and put away the plates,
the
cutlery and pots and pans to get
a
schoolboy’s small allowance, then the Fates
that
fixed the bonds of family, reset.
Canned
foods for our convenience replaced
the
pantry jars, while chips came ready cut;
preparing
meals became a chore as taste
for
junk food swelled the West’s collective gut.
Fast
food, dishwashers, microwaves conspired
to
kill the kitchen ethos of the past,
as
did life’s frantic pace which has retired
those
memories a bygone era cast.
Poet’s
Notes: “Long Gone Kitchen” is an autobiographical
piece. My mother used to bake from handed-down recipes, and make Sunday roast
with vegetables grown in the garden, while I earned a modest amount of pocket
money cleaning up the kitchen and washing up. The modern, pre-packaged world
put paid to this, though I'm glad to say my son is turning out to be an
accomplished cook.
Editor’s
Notes: Freeman casts this poem in a traditional form, and
that form echoes the note of change that drives his poem. As intensely structured poems, carefully
metered and rhymed, are no longer the going thing, so meals prepared from
scratch, with home grown and home processed ingredients, are rarer and rarer in
this hectic, somewhat tasteless, world. CAS
About
the Poet: Paul A.
Freeman is an English teacher. He is the author of The Movement,
a dystopia-Americana novel set in a future United States. It is available from
Amazon as an ebook download and as a paperback.
His
first book, Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel taught at ‘O’ level in
Zimbabwean high schools, was also translated into German.
In
addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative
poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially
published, Paul is the author of numerous published short stories, poems and
articles.
He works and resides in Mauritania, Africa
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kitchen
Courtroom
free
verse
My
father held court at the dinner table
and
dictated that only chewing was allowed,
we
had to sit up straight and eat with our
right
hand, even my brother, the lefty.
“Homework
done?” his voice would boom,
a
choir of “yes, sir,” would rise from the four of us
as
his judgmental drooping eye bore down on me
and
onto my siblings, one at a time.
A
grade below B, and you’re evicted from the table
and
sent to sit in the kitchen corner without supper.
Sometimes,
I wanted to plead, “Please, sir, may I have
some
more?”, preferring a workhouse over his cruelty.
Being
the youngest, usually, I was safe. The grade
of
‘S’ was satisfactory and sufficient for Father’s
ears;
he would pass me over and hunt the next victim,
but
today was different.
I
silently chewed with my head down until I heard
the
words ‘Spelling Bee’ echo off the dingy yellow
kitchen
walls. My eyes widened with fear; I knew what
came
next. He stumbled over the words written on my taped-up
award
that he held in his hands. I thought I had ripped it up
before
I got home, hoping to save myself from his vile voice.
He
began with, “This means nothing, you’re nothing!”
“Don’t
get above yourself!” he bellowed. “You’re just
another
stupid little girl.” He balled up the wrinkly, sticky
paper.
He handed it to my older brother, who got up from
the
kitchen table, walked to the garbage, lifted the lid,
and
into the trash, I fell.
Poet’s
Notes: A mixture of memories created “Kitchen Courtroom.”
It was one of those poems or prose pieces that seemed to write
themselves. I am grateful to be able to share this with others who may
have experienced unfortunate moments. Offering the knowledge that they were not
the only ones.
Editor’s
Notes: In
a poem already tense with leashed anger, where a child’s under-performance will
not be accepted, the turn in the poem astonishes me. The little sister, who has succeeded, is
berated and belittled for her success.
How does this poem make me feel?
Shaken. CAS
About the Poet: Dana I. Hunter (she/her), a top poet in the NAMI NJ: Dara Axelrod Expressive Arts Poetry Contest, has been featured in Heather Stivison's Ekphrasis! Poets Respond to Art in the Gallery; featured at Pleiades Gallery in NYC; published in The Decolonial Passage Literary Magazine, The National & International Goddess Anthology 2024, and The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, table/FEAST Literary Magazine, New Jersey Bards Poetry Review, and Open Minds Quarterly. Dana has a B.A. in Communications from Upsala College. She is an African American poet living and writing in New Jersey, U.S.A.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
free
verse
Sunday
mornings,
everyone
still
asleep.
Dad and I would
sneak
into the kitchen
to
make breakfast:
Hershey’s
bar, Wonder
Whites,
butter in a cast iron
pan.
Oh, the sweet smell
of
chocolate melting between
browning
bread. I believe in God
because
of those mornings. It was God
who
came to me in bold bursts of flavor. God
letting
me know the world is not wholly
unkind.
How could it be,
when
Mom was still asleep
when
Dad and I were in the kitchen
bringing
heaven to earth?
Editor’s Notes: I wonder what Mom would have said if she were awake. Therein lies the tension in the poem. The poem is beautiful in the simplicity of its cherished scene, but it is deepened by the possibility that this earthly heaven could be shattered by the voice of disapproval. I’m glad, however, that faith wins out. CAS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Hope
free
verse
Diane
Gottlieb
breathes,
like
batter in the bowl,
chocolate
chips
folded
into the mix,
rises
like
pancakes
browning
over heat
tastes
like
warmth
and
late winter’s sap,
tapped
from
deep
forest
maples,
fills
that
part of us, hungry
for
the thing with feathers
caged
in
our prisons
of
sadness, despair.
What
else
awakens
the
Bird in the soul
stirring
light, shining
love
a
buttered pan,
sweet
and
sizzling
by the stove.
~after Emily
Dickinson
Editor’s
Notes: Gottlieb’s two poems are complementary. They sing, it seems to me, harmony
parts. I enjoy the nod to Emily
Dickinson’s poem about hope: “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers--/That perches
in the soul—". (This is the poem Terri Cummings chose as her editor’s
pick.) CAS Sometimes the past seems lost to me, but this poem reminded me that love never loses its connection to the present. So beautiful.
About
the Poet: Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings:
Stories of Body & Consciousness and the forthcoming Manna
Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage and Grieving
Hope. Her writing appears in Brevity, Witness, River
Teeth, Florida Review, and Huffington Post, among
many other lovely places. She is the winner of Tiferet Journal’s 2021
Writing Contest in nonfiction, longlisted in 2023 and 2024 at Wigleaf Top 50,
and a finalist for Hole in the Head Review’s 2024 Charles Simic Poetry
Prize.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A
Smoke in the Kitchen
free
verse
Chrissie
Anderson Peters
Her
dishes washed,
the
cornbread baking,
the
next pot of coffee
percolating
on the stove,
Daisy
shuffles over
to
the Formica table,
pulls
out her rolling papers
and
Prince Albert in a can.
Raises
the rolling paper
to
her cracked and aging lips,
she
licks the edge,
wetting
it down,
lifts
the bright red tin,
dribbles
out a thin line
of
aromatic tobacco,
commences
rolling,
adjusting
the edge as she goes,
keeping
the line taut.
Dragging
a moistened finger
and
pulling the end shut,
she
lights it with a kitchen match,
finally
time to take her smoke.
Stroking
her knee,
where
the prosthetic leg fits,
sparks
of tobacco flying
as
she inhales deeply,
dreaming
for a moment
of
a redbird she can wish on,
then
she crushes out the cigarette
and
moves on to her next chore,
because
wishing and waiting
never
get things done.
Poet’s
Notes: My
great-grandmother, Granny Vance, inhabits two rooms in my memory -- her bedroom
(which doubled as a sitting room), and her kitchen. That kitchen was a room of
wonderment where her Hoosier cabinet became my general store and we watched for
redbirds to wish on out the kitchen windows during her cigarette breaks. My
great-grandfather wouldn't buy her packs of cigarettes because he said they
were too expensive, so she rolled her own -- meticulously -- the same way she
did everything in that kitchen.
Editor’s
Notes: I admire the
immediacy of this scene, the accuracy of detail. Daisy inhabits the space. The kitchen is hers. I’m intrigued by the way she rewards her many
labors with a smoke break. CAS
About the Poet: Chrissie Anderson Peters lives in Bristol, Tennessee. She holds degrees from Emory & Henry College and the University of Tennessee. She has been published in or is forthcoming in Women of Appalachia Project, Red Branch Review, Untelling, Salvation South, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cutleaf, and others. Read more at www.CAPWrites.com.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Cooking
for the Cat
free
verse
Janet
McCann
could
never cook for myself,
(I)
(it) did not seem worth the trouble
to
chop up onions and garlic,
to
look for seasonings on the pantry shelf,
to
set out a place mat, plate, knife and fork,
to
serve myself
when
there are so many drive through windows,
quick
anonymous transactions:
here,
ma’am, is your change--
so
I tried to throw out my wok
but
it sat there on top of the trash bin
like
a rejected pet,
its
surface scarred and dented
seasoned
with old oils,
the
handles that always were too hot to touch
poking
out from yesterday’s news,
so
I thought I would give it one more go
and
I chopped up onions and garlic
threw
in shrimp, noodles
ginger,
celery, a wilted pepper,
and
a burst of festive scent filled the house
and
I said ohhh, how good to the cat,
slipped
her slivers of shrimp while we watched the news--
then
she played with a noodle
as
I wiped dry the battered wok,
put
it back into the cabinet.
we
were worth it.
Poet’s
Note: As a solo widow who likes to cook, I often plan my
dinner around the pets' preferences...
Editor’s Notes: I like how this poem catches both the tedium and the joy in cooking. The struggle is a real one, to overcome apathy in order to experience ecstasy. After any put-off task is resumed and completed well, a small burst of pride pays the achiever. CAS
About
the Poet: I am an ancient Texas poet who taught creative
writing and other vices at Texas A&M for 47 years, retired in 2014.
My most recent book: LIFE LIST, Wipf and Stock, 2022.
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General Submission
Smoke
Break
free
verse
John
Wise
Dawa’s
fingers, sheened black with ink,
sketch
as swiftly
as
eyes blink
when
filled with cathedral dust—
sketch
to beat the dinner rush.
Dawa’s
fingers, jet-black, jet-propulsed,
sketch
flowers lush:
squid
tentacle orchids
that
even I,
flower-blight,
can
keep alive.
Editor’s
Notes: This
poem sings to me. How fitting that Dawa
creates flowers with his inky art. How
transformational these flowers, sprinkled with a bit of cathedral dust! CAS
About
the Poet: John Wise is a middle school English teacher
living in Florida. Whether writing on his own or working with his students, he
promotes writing that is deeply rooted in curiosity, collaboration, and the
sheer joy of creating. John has poems published in Seedlings, JAKE,
and Moonlit Getaway, among other publications. You can find him on
BlueSky @central2nowhere.
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Frequent Contributor News
May Soon Lee’s poem “The Emperor Penguins of Mars” appeared in DreamForge: https://dreamforgemagazine.com/story./the-emperor-penguins-of-mars/
Also, “Reaper” appeared in Strange Horizons: http://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/poetry/reaper.
And, “Rules for a Magic Sword” appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: https://www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com/?p=4417.
Alessio Zanelli’s magazine acceptances include The Berlin Review (Germany), The Shanghai Literary Review (China), and Statement (California).
John C. Mannone’s awards and acceptances include Accolades for Sacred Flute (Iris Press, Feb 2024): It is currently a top-eight-finalist for the 2025 Tennessee Book Award (also nominated for the 2025 Elgin Book Award (Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association). Sacred Flute is a collection of poems infused with and inspired by Native American Indian culture, history, and legend.
https://irisbooks.com/product/sacred-flute/
A new release, Coffee Poems: The Art of Waking (Island of Wak-Wak Press, Apr 2025): Coffee Poems is a chapbook collection that includes the origin of coffee, traditions, obsessions or rituals, common associations (and uncommon ones), a bit of science, mixology, metaphor, and others. https://islandofwakwak.com/coffee-poems.html
Awards for the 68th annual Poetry Society of Tennessee Festival poetry competitions: 4 First Place winners, 1 Second Place winner, and 4 Honorable mentions (out of 22 contests) were announced on April 26, 2025. (The 4 winning poems will be published in the anthology Tennessee Voices).
Charles A. Swanson has two poems in the Cur(rent) Is(sue), Is(sue) 17, of AvantAppal(achia), an ezine dedicated to avant-garde poetry, fiction, and art. https://www.avantappalachia.com
Terri Cummings’ narrative poem, “Moon Jumping” appeared in the Last Stanza Poetry Journal Issue 20: Games print and ebook, Spring 2025. The book is available on Amazon.
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Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is a for-profit entity that operates at a loss of up to $7,000 per year. It is sustained entirely by donations of time, talent, and treasure from our editorial staff, loyal readership, and family of poets and artists.
Our four quarterly issues take hundreds of man-hours to produce. That is what it takes to offer our readers a quality experience and our featured and guest poets and artists a place where they may be proud to publish their work.
Please consider making a modest gift supporting our purpose, “to bring a little more good poetry into the world.” Those interested should use PayPal.com with Donations@SongsOfEretz.com as the receiving address.
Please note that contributions are not tax deductible.
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Forthcoming
"Digging" theme -- what we are looking for
2025 Themes and Deadlines
(Please note the new submissions' address, both here and on our Guidelines page. The correct submissions' address is submissionssofe@gmail.com)
Some Guidance for the Fall "Digging" Submission Call (What We’re Looking For):
Our fall theme is “digging,” and the submission window opens August 1 and closes August 15 at midnight. I’ve learned that I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for until we start reading poems. Each time we read for a new theme, my horizons are broadened, for poets have a way of seeing a theme in ways I haven’t imagined beforehand.
Nevertheless, the safest course is always to make the theme explicit in some way. A digger might be moving dirt with an excavator, or she might be moving clutter—inexpensive jewelry, for example—as she searches for the cameo her grandmother left her. A digger could unearth ideas as another digger might unearth potatoes.
I would love to see some good poems
about dirt. But I also would cherish
poems that delve into history or family lore.
The danger may lie in employing the
theme as an excuse to write about something else. Sometimes that sidewise approach seems
obvious to us as readers. We say (to
ourselves) that the poem might touch on digging, but digging is not at the roots
of the poem. As we choose between many
good poems, the ones that truly represent the theme of digging are the ones we dig
the most.
By the way, “digging” is also a term
used in volleyball. Who doesn’t love a
good sports poem?
2025 Themes & Deadlines
Season Theme Submission Period
Spring Artifacts February 1-15
(objects that carry history, memory, identification, such as message in a bottle from the past, etc.)
****
Summer In the Kitchen May 1-15
(foods, customs, kitchen talk, preparation, teaching, etc.)
***
Fall Digging August 1-15
(literal or figurative)
***
Winter Tension November 1-15
(literal or figurative, life situations, the push and pull, tension within the poem itself, the complexity of situations, etc.)
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SONGS OF ERETZ POETRY REVIEW