Review by Booklist Review
Poets have extolled culinary indulgence since at least Anacreon and Sappho, but poet and editor Young (Ardency, 2011) includes in this anthology poems that interpret food and drink in a myriad of imaginative ways. From Pablo Neruda's condimental odes ( Ode to Salt and Ode to an Onion ) to Langston Hughes' I, Too, Sing America, sustenance and libations play shifting and diverse roles throughout. Though gastronomic wordplay seems too easy to describe the smorgasbord of stylistic samplings in this melodious cornucopia, perhaps the horn of plenty is an appropriate figure for the anthology, as Young brings to the table a refreshingly flavorful selection of poets. It's fascinating to read Natasha Trethewey ( Invocation, 1926 ) and Charles Simic ( Watermelons ), Gary Soto ( The Plum's Heart ), Martin Espada ( Coca-Cola and Coco Frio ), and works by poets of the past and to see how the poems diverge and converge. This is perhaps the great strength of any thematic anthology, work presented not in arbitrary or alphabetical order, but grouped by common subjects, such as Young's food-for-thought categories, Meat & Potatoes, Forbidden Fruit, and Giving Thanks. --Baez, Diego Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
"The world begins at a kitchen table," Joy Harjo says at the beginning of this anthology, edited by National Book Award finalist Young, featuring poems in homage to all things comestible. In his introduction, Young says that the making of poems is akin to the making of a meal-both are acts of creation and sustenance. While poetry may be more permanent, with each making the eater and reader consume beauty, internalize it, and thrive. "This anthology revels in the many tastes all around us, some of which we need poetry to help describe," says Young. Indeed, the selections represent a wide range of the world's renowned poets, from Elizabeth Alexander to Paul Zimmer, from Baudelaire to Belieu, and celebrate topics as varied as picking blackberries, eating beans, and drinking beer for breakfast. Young includes a poem "with a cucumber in it" as well as Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." There are poems about pork and pot roasts, coffee and cookies and cola. The book is arranged from fall harvest to sumptuous summer, so that "the cycle of life is shown here in its ups and downs-as only poetry can." Or, as Li-Young Lee says, "O, to take what we love inside,/ to carry within us an orchard. ." This anthology is a feast! VERDICT Essential for all poetry collections.-Karla Huston, Wisconsin Acad. of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Madison (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
