For more information, contact Cindy Young, (937) 775-3232.
Words are nutrients that nurture the soul in Food Poems, a pocket-sized anthology of poetry about food.
"Some people just don't know how good greasy tastes," writes Nan Arbuckle in her poem "Highway 18, Fairfax, OK," where coming home means dinner at the Roller Inn diner. "One good mouthful and I was safe."
Arbuckle's verse, and poetry by 34 other writers, is served up in Food Poems with imagery that makes taste buds sit up and take notice.
Food Poems tells us about our heritage, our rituals, our traditions and ourselves. Perfect company at a table for one, it was edited by David Lee Garrison and Terry Hermsen.
"The world is not with us enough. O taste and see," writes Denise Levertov, probably best known of the poets represented, of spiritual hunger. Levertov, who died less that a year ago at the age of 74, was professor emerita at Stanford University, where she taught from 1981-1994.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987, Rita Dove's "Sunday Greens" leaves tradition behind. "She wants to taste change/She wants pride to roar through the kitchen till it shines like straw," writes Dove, who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995.
A native of Akron, Ohio, and currently commonwealth professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Dove's contemporaries in Food Poems are mainly Ohioans.
Garrison, who wrote the recipe for the anthology, is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Wright State University in Dayton. Hermsen is professor of English at Ohio State University's Marion campus. They met as faculty members at the Antioch Writer's Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and set last Thanksgiving as the deadline for their compilation of this cornucopia of poetry.
Bottom Dog Press, at Firelands College in Huron, Ohio, published the anthology in its pocket poems series, which is dedicated to making poetry more accessible and "thereby increasing our quality of literacy." Food Poems gives you a taste of poetry that whets your appetite for more. It is available for $2.50 (postpaid) from Bottom Dog Press, Firelands College ofBowling Green State University, Huron, Ohio, 44839, or call (419) 433-5560.
Editors note: The following poets' work is included in Food Poems.
Bonnie Jacobson, Beachwood, Ohio
Grace Butcher, Charon, Ohio
Don Bogen, Cincinnati, Ohio
James Cummins, Cincinnati, Ohio
Andrew Hudgins, Cincinnati, Ohio
Susan Grimm, Cleveland
Gail Bellamny, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
David Citino, Columbus, Ohio
Yvonne Hardenbrook, Columbus, Ohio
Herbert Martin, Dayton, Ohio
David Petreman, Dayton, Ohio
Kathy Fagan, Delaware, Ohio
Robert Flanagan, Delaware, Ohio
Stuart Lishan, Delaware, Ohio
David Baker, Granville, Ohio
Maggie Anderson, Kent, Ohio
David Hassler, Kent, Ohio
Nan Arbuckle, Lima, Ohio
Lynne Powell, Oberlin, Ohio
Kay Sloan, Oxford, Ohio
Imogene Bolls, Springfield, Ohio
Francis Smith, University Heights, Ohio
Frank Polite, Youngstown, Ohio
Li-Young Lee, Chicago, IL
Karen Kovacik, Indianapolis, IN
Diane Wakoski, East Lansing, MI
Collette Inez, New York, NY
Rita Dove, Charlottesville, VA
Colleen McElroy, Seattle, WA.
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