Charles Simic Remembers the Salad Days With Mark Strand

Wow: Charles Simic writes about Mark Strand for the New York Review of Books blog. Strand, who died in November, was one of Simic's oldest friends: "Having known him for forty-six years, I’ve come to realize since he passed away what a huge presence he was in my life and still continues to be." This is a fond (and foodish!) remembrance. An excerpt:

We started a new poetry movement that we hoped would make us famous. Every other poet was starting one forty years ago, so we thought, Why not us? Ours was to be called Gastronomic Poetry. Both Mark and I had noticed at poetry readings that whenever food was mentioned in a poem—and that didn’t happen very often—blissful smiles would break out on the faces of people in the audience. Thus, we reasoned, in a country where most people hate poetry and everyone is eating and snacking constantly, poems ought to mention food more frequently. To fix that deplorable omission, we thought we’d include one or more mouth-watering dishes in every poem we wrote, no matter what its subject was. Literary purists were bound to be shocked finding barbecued ribs or a slice of apple pie in some sublime poem of ours, but those millions of Americans who buy gourmet magazines and cookbooks and dream of eating the gorgeously prepared meals described in their pages, without ever bothering to make them themselves, would rush to buy our books and enjoy them in the same way. Mark’s poem about pot roast is an example of gastronomic poetry:

I gaze upon the roast, that is sliced and laid out on my plate, and over it I spoon the juices of carrot and onion. And for once I do not regret the passage of time…

There are more than a few of mine where yummy dishes are mentioned. Here’s a love poem called “Café Paradiso”:

My chicken soup thickened with pounded young almonds. My blend of winter greens. Dearest tagliatelle with mushrooms, fennel, anchovies, Tomatoes and vermouth sauce. Beloved monk fish braised with onions, capers And green olives. Give me your tongue tasting of white beans and garlic…

By now, you are probably asking yourself, Did these two ever talk about anything serious? Of course, we did. We talked about how writing a poem is no different from taking out a frying pan and concocting a dish out of the ingredients available in the house, how in poetry, as in cooking, it’s all a matter of subtle little touches that come from long experience or are the result of sudden inspiration. . . .

Read it all at NYRB.