Thanksgiving Menu Poem

a concept poem structured around the thanksgiving meal

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a concept poem structured around the thanksgiving meal 〰️

Welcome to the Thanksgiving Menu-Poem. This project is a conceptual meal served as poetry for the thousands of friends I would love to have at our home on Thanksgiving Day.

This series began in 2002 with a Menu-Poem to honor Charles Bernstein, and since then this series engages Thanksgiving as the basis to celebrate poetry, poets, and the poetry community. Being a trained professional chef, I have blended my love of food and poetry into a book-length work as a feast of words and art to bring everyone a tiny bit closer together.

Thanksgiving 2007

This is It : A menu poem in 26 courses
Guest of Honor: Ron Silliman

A dinner of 26 courses? Can you do that? Of course, of course.

But yes, I have an answer for everything. And you are going to get a taste of a little bit of everything. In honor of Ron I really twisted my mind around what is possible for a meal, well a virtual meal.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this we cannot eat, but we could, if we wanted to. Each of these dishes can be prepared by me and are in the repertoire prepared at my day job. The meal is planned out for an allevening event and would be portioned out with great care so that even the most delicate of attendees would see all 26 courses in style.

The title comes from the last line in my favorite Silliman poem, “The Chinese Notebook,” number 223.

Enjoy,
Geoffrey Gatza

Thanksgiving Menu 2007

A Table Alphabeticall
The First English Dictionary, 1604 (distributed by the University of Chicago Press), the work was originally published under the title A Table Alphabeticall. It was compiled in the late 16th century by Robert Cawdrey. Oddly amusing is the title page refered to this a guide to “hard usuall English wordes” that readers sometimes encountered “in Scripture, Sermons, or elswhere.”

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Anne Waldman 2008

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John Ashbery 2006