Cooking & Conjuring

Cooking is conjuring, isn't it?  Intentioned items are combined in the pot, in the skillet, over the fire.  There is energy in food preparation as well as in the food, and there is certainly energy in conjuring.  Be careful what you whip up over the open flame, am I right?

First Mentor Poem

​Truth Serum
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
 
We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.
Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,   
popped it right in.
That frog song wanting nothing but echo?   
We used that.
Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.
Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes   
of summer. Dropped in their names.   
Added a mint leaf now and then   
to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.   
Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?   
Perfect. And once we had it,
had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup,   
placing the pan on a back burner for keeping,   
the sorrow lifted in small ways.
We boiled down the lies in another pan till they disappeared.
We washed that pan.

​Source: Poetry Out Loud

Poem Prompt #1

• Write a poem explaining a truth that needs to be known.
• Or, free write about a truth needs to be told?  What elements of that scene could go into a concocted “truth serum”?  Write that last part in a poem.
• In poem form, write a recipe for “lifting sorrow.”
• In poem form, write a recipe for eliciting truth.

Second Mentor Poem

Witches speech in Macbeth
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Act IV, Scene I

The three witches, casting a spell
Round about the cauldron go;   
In the poison’d entrails throw.   
Toad, that under cold stone    
Days and nights hast thirty one   
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,   
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.   
     Double, double toil and trouble; 
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.   
Fillet of a fenny snake,   
In the cauldron boil and bake;   
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,   
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,   
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,   
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,   
For a charm of powerful trouble, 
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.   
     Double, double toil and trouble;   
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,      
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf     
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,     
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,     
Liver of blaspheming Jew,      
Gall of goat, and slips of yew     
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,     
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,     
Finger of birth-strangled babe      
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,     
Make the gruel thick and slab:     
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,     
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
     Double, double toil and trouble;   
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

Poem Prompt #2

​Write a conjuring poem, a poem about winding up “a charm.”
Consider the use of sound in your list of ingredients, or their symbolic presence.                                       

GROUP POEM !

A Cauldron Poem (for Christine)
 POETRYBONES WRITING GROUP

For Discussion

Cooking Lesson
​MARGARET BENBOW​

Source: Poetry Foundation