First of all, thank you so very much for the warm reception on my last post. Engaging with you in the comments gave me a lovely endorphin rush that reminded me we’re not alone navigating the ever-changing internet age. And we have a lot of feelings about it. Keep sharing them! We need to forge our own path together, and it always helps know that others are walking a similar road.
Almost exactly eleven years ago, I was pacing in my apartment on a rainy day sometime between Christmas and New Year’s. A few months earlier, the itch arrived. You know the one—something in your creative life needs to shift or change directions, but you don’t have all the details yet. It was a season of liminal space before I knew the term and could soften into its uncertainty.
Hence, the pacing.
I’d been writing my first food blog for nearly four years, but it was starting to feel stagnant. During this time, I’d also been writing and reading less poetry, which is what I attended graduate school to study. It was as if I’d traded my poetry books for cookbooks, and now I wanted to find my way back to the writer I knew all those years ago. I just didn’t know how.
Enter, Louise Glück. During my sophomore year of college I flew to Boston over Thanksgiving weekend to visit a friend attending Williams College, where Glück taught at the time. This friend went on to work with Glück on her senior thesis and had only glowing things to say about her new mentor. After returning home, I bought a couple of Glück’s books and became an enormous fan of her work.
Fast forward to the hallway, and her books, along with several dozen others, were alphabetically stored in a cabinet that I hadn’t looked at in a very long time. When I finally did open the doors, I scanned the spines and Glück’s The First Four Book of Poems caught my eye. I stood against the wall and flipped to the pages I’d dog-eared, landing on a poem called “Baskets,” about a woman at a market.
Having spent the past few years thinking predominantly about food, my eyes were naturally drawn to the ingredients like lettuces and lemons, and it didn’t take long for me to think of a recipe. Within hours, I’d come up with a title for my new blog, and Eat This Poem launched a couple of weeks later. The moment itself felt electric, right. My whole body was charged. I knew this was my next right step and could hardly contain my enthusiasm.
It’s possible I may have come up with the idea of pairing food and poetry from another book. But it was this one. Her work. That day. And it changed everything because six months later, an editor at Roost Books emailed me to ask if I’d ever thought about writing a cookbook. Five years after that, Eat This Poem: A Literary Feast of Recipes Inspired by Poetry was published.
When I heard the news of Glück’s passing in last month, I went back to my shelf, this time pulling out Averno, and read it on the couch while dinner simmered on the stove.
I was young here. Riding
the subway with my small book
as though to defend myself againstthis same world:
you are not alone,
the poem said,
in the dark tunnel.
I remembered how when I was putting together the manuscript for my cookbook, I knew “Baskets” had to be included no matter what, but it was also one of the most expensive poems to reprint because it’s the longest, and most poem permissions are priced by line. I didn’t care. (All of the permissions fees came out of my advance, by the way. By the end of it, I had nothing left and had to pay a small amount out of my own pocket to get the poems I needed.)
Her poems are precise and layered, mythical yet grounded. When reading them, I feel a sense of wholeness, completeness. Her lines are a comfort, but also make you wonder, ask questions. And sometimes, they might even make you hungry.
Thank you, Louise Glück, for everything.
Until next time,
Nicole
📚 Reading
—On my nightstand: Rom-com Just My Type kept me company when the war in Israel broke out, Living Resistance gently guides us to embody resistance in all realms of our lives, and Time’s Mouth is definitely one of my favorite novels of the year (I stayed up late two nights in a row reading it).
—5 Louise Glück poems to get you started (gifted link)
🎧 Listening
—Ada Limón on giving up on identity.
—Chloé Cooper Jones discusses Easy Beauty (and a few of the literary tricks hiding inside her manuscript).
—A reminder that things don’t have to be so hard.
🍳 Eating
—I’m in my soup era and loving this vegan zuppa toscana (I used regular Italian sausage). I also have plans for this tomato soup, and have been making batches of kale and white bean minestrone too.
—This gluten-free artisan loaf baked up beautifully (I used the skillet approach) and is definitely my new favorite recipe for grilled cheese sandwiches, croutons, and avocado toast.