Let food be thy medicine…”
—Hippocrates
As a project of Poetic Earth Month, we’ll be offering a 30-Day Writing Challenge during April, which will serve double duty for National Poetry Month!
The challenge will focus on food in a fun way, from a few different angles:
• discovering the beauties of a plant-rich food lifestyle
• helpful tips and tricks for such a lifestyle
• maximizing your food dollars and reducing waste
• exploring the connection between food and health
• exploring the connection between food and climate
See Day 1 (sample of things to come)
Check out the first post, which is a sample of things to come!
Poem From Day 1
Pearls
Barley comes in little pearls
I’ve never sought to own.
Millet makes me wonder:
could I eat it till it’s gone?
Bulgar sounds unfriendly,
but I’m betting on its iron.
Buckwheat offers pancakes!
It’ll be the first I try on.
—L.L. Barkat
Want to Get a Daily Inbox Delivery of the Challenge?
Come April, the challenge will begin. Our patrons can choose to receive a daily inbox delivery of the challenge, complete with meditative photo.
See another sample (we love the strawberries)
If you’d like this choice, become a patron today.
Or, Try Earth to Poetry
Not keen on food? For a more general earth, self, and other-care challenge, you could use our book Earth to Poetry, which is based on last year’s Poetic Earth Month project.
Want to Get Really Fancy?
For our 2020 group dare, we’re daring people to get really fancy and create a journal on Canva.
Here’s ours so far:
Or, you could create the journal at home, using collage techniques. Then share the pictures with us via Instagram!
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- Free E-Book + Poetry Prompt! - April 14, 2025
- Braving the Poem: Interview with Catherine Abbey Hodges - March 24, 2025
Will Willingham says
It surprised me, when I first began to explore poetry, the way food images can be so emotionally powerful. The sensual quality of these images should make for a really interesting 30 days of reading and writing poems on this topic, and create plenty of space for exploring our feelings and thoughts on the practicalities of the things you list above. 🙂
L.L. Barkat says
Such a great point about food images. Maybe because all of us have experience with food, we can enter in to such poems more quickly and fully than when the images are otherwise. Plus, a single food image can bring with it a wealth of other images (since imagery is actually not just what we *see,* but also what we feel, taste, smell, hear).
I’m all for space, when it comes to exploring, and I do love the idea of pairing that with some practical discoveries along the way. 🙂
I look forward to reading some of your poems for this, Will. (I hope you join us, and write. 🙂 )
Laura Lynn Brown says
Oh, I’m so glad you’re doing this again in 2020, and with a focus on food.
Quinoa unfurls as it cooks
and tastes like it’s part nut.
The spelt berries in my pantry
don’t know how to get in my gut.
Barley finds its way
in mushroom-onion soup.
Sign me up for this train of grains
and keep me in the loop.
L.L. Barkat says
Thank you, Laura. I was hoping you’d come along poetically, especially since your own food journey has taken its own interesting turns in recent years. Also, I just always love your food poems. 🙂 (This one is fun!)
There’ll be a signup option coming up soon via a patron newsletter. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Day 1: Pearls
Carb Fever
I’m craving a thick slice,
or two or three,
of pearly white, processed bread,
egg-soaked French toast,
cinnamon scented
powdered sugar sprinkled
slathered with real butter
generously drizzled with
Michigan Four-Star maple syrup
sapped from my sister’s trees.
Carb fever
in the time of Covid.
L.L. Barkat says
Very fun poem. 🙂
Carbs are good for you, if they are whole. 🙂 So, indulge!
As part of the challenge, we’ve been trying new whole grains. We ground some buckwheat the other day and made buckwheat pancakes, and they were *amazing.* Try it?
Sandra Heska King says
Thanks.
Buckwheat pancakes has never rocked my taste buds, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had them. So maybe the buds have changed.
I *did* make some French toast the other day with Dave’s thing-sliced “21 Whole Grains and Seeds” bread. It was good–but still not the same. 😉
I have tabbouleh and farro salad on forthcoming menus. Does that count? 🙂
L.L. Barkat says
Everything good counts. 🙂
Sandara Heska King says
Day 2: Glory Be
Glory Be
Glory be to broccoli
to Brussels sprouts and kale
to spinach, ‘maters, and romaine
I eat them without fail.
To eggplants, peppers, stringy squash
blueberries by the pail
to peaches, apples, oranges, grapes
there’s no fear of the scale.
To peppers, ‘taters, artichokes
and avocados, too
to all the colors of the bow
without them I’d be frail.
Sandra Heska King says
Day 3: Recipe For
Recipe For Life
In the time of Covid
I’ve been making yogurt.
Cold start – Instant Pot
Easy but not instant
Add the starter
Add the milk
Set the dial
Incubate
Wait
In the time of Covid
We’ve been saving lives
Easy but not instant
Isolate
Wait
Sandra Heska King says
Day 4: Quick Lunch Date
Cheese Please
Whole grain tortilla
fold it over grated cheese
nuked for a minute
add an apple if you please
michelle ortega says
I’d love this lunch date. But it would probably serve more as a snack. 😉
Sara Barkat says
Day 4: quick lunch date
Ode to toast
Nothing like the warmth of toast in winter
Crackle grain browned, slow-rose for hours hence
That the day before you kneaded, waited,
Watched rise, bready yeast finding its way forth—
The pour of new flour, worked and stretched till
Softness began. Pulled whorls shaped under palm
And fist; measures of chemistry collapsed.
—Now, after oven fires that refined
Sweetness, brought nutty grain and crinkled light;
After that first taste still hot from being
Condensation left behind small pink plates
You still have this: cut quick, heated and topped
With bitter olive oil; sweet honey.
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, yummy. I can smell it. I can taste it. I must have some.
michelle ortega says
You’ve captured cozy and comforting. With skill, in the quick cut and drizzled honey. YUM!
Sandra Heska King says
Day 5: Five-Star Cuisine
Just so you know… I’m not spending a lot of time on these. It’s probably obvious.
Five-Star (or Six) Sushi Salad
Our realtor sends us a magazine–
American Lifestyle: Celebrating Life in America.
Issue 101 came today with a recipe for sushi salad.
I always thought sushi was another name
for raw fish–yuck!
I looked it up.
“A Japanese dish prepared with vinegared rice,
usually with some sugar and salt.
Right there–salty, sweet, and sour.
Three stars.
Add some edamame beans and rice
and some sliced Persian cucumbers.
Bitter – boom.
Four stars.
Throw in some avocados, baby spinach leaves,
and toasted sesame seeds.
Sprinkle in some sea salt and black pepper.
Five stars for the spicy.
Drizzle with some olive oil and a
sesame-miso dressing.
My taste buds are fired up.
I’m ready to dive in.
But wait. There’s more.
Top it off with thin, toasted strips of
SEAWEED SHEETS.
An online article titled
“A Home Cook’s Secret Weapon”
touts this green stuff as a superfood
with all kinds of good things going for it,
calling it
anti-inflammatory
antioxidant
anticoagulant
antithrombotic
antiviral
anticarcinogen.
It brings a umami, or savory flavor
to a dish.
Is that six stars?
My taste buds are rebelling.
Honestly, I was good until I got to there.
I don’t know if tasting it I dare.
I think I’d rather wear
the seaweed in my hair.
Michelle Ortega says
Senses
for Marilyn Yocum
I remember
she wrote about
honeysuckle,
so thick in the
morning air,
she tastes them
on her breath.
I think of her early
morning letters
each time spring
blooms this way.
(not an exact response to Day 6 but this is what it inspired 😉
Jake cosmos aller says
my greatest comfort food is coffee
My greatest comfort food
is a hot cup of coffee
early in the morning
I pound down my coffee
and unleash my inner muse
inspired by the caffeine
I get to work
slowly drinking my cup
of heaven and hell
my morning cup of Joe
Jake cosmos aller says
blueberry smoothie
my daily breakfast
includes blue berries
in my smoothie
blueberry, strawberry, oranges
banana, pineapple,
home made kefir
kale
spinach
wheat grass
macca root
apple cider vinegar
coconut oil
stevia
honey
cinnamon
all blended to perfection
that is my daily breakfast
fit for a champion
tweeter speak prompt
Jake cosmos aller says
mango madness
the best mangos
I ever had
were in India
in the early spring
mango madness
spreads across India
as mangos are in season
and mangos are everywhere
on every menu
so sweet
so fragrant
so magical
mango madness
takes over
my soul
as I eat my mango
dreaming mango dreams
tweeter speak
L.L. Barkat says
I can just see (and smell) those mangoes! And, I can imagine India under their spell.
Now I would like a mango. 🙂
Jake cosmos aller says
Bulgar is not one of my things
Bulgar is not one of my things
Unless there is nothing left to eat
Like nothing at all
Get that bulgar off my plate
All i want is anything else
Raw bulgar just does not do it for me
Jake cosmos aller says
Plans
every morning I wake up
filled with great plans
and I sit
drink my coffee
make my plans
lost in my thoughts
focused on the plan
then life happens
and my plans
go awry
thrown out the window
and in the end of the day
a man without a plan
is lost in inner space
Jake cosmos aller says
packages
they say
that God works in mysterious ways
his wonders to perform
every day it seems
that more and more
of what we buy
and consume
comes in packages
sent from here and there
as people
continue to practice
social distancing
and going to the store
becomes an exercise
fraught with peril
and danger
so we order
on line
and we get our packages
sent from here and there
one day we received
a gift package
of clams
delicious fresh clams
as I ate them
I thought of the workers
who had labored unseen
for me to enjoy
this bounty from the sea
and I gave thanks
to the gods
for making it happen
in this day and age
we should thank
those who are still
laboring to feed the world
they are the unsung heroes
of this war fought by nature
under the direction
of General Corona
Laura Lynn Brown says
Day 29 prompt:
Plate Plan
Protein, starch, vegetable, fruit?
That’s seldom my conscious plan
for a balanced plate.
Sometimes it happens anyway—
pinto beans and cheese
over rice on a tortilla
aging spinach leaves for color
and a splash of salsa (tomatoes, right?)
a meal wrapped up
with the last
cara cara orange
on the side.
Laura Lynn Brown says
“Discuss today’s poem or share your prompt response,” the email has said each day. I want to discuss today’s post more than the poem, especially the pendulum swing of “Yay! A forgotten bit of pineapple! This is good; I’ll get more!” “Oh — the pandemic. Stores. No, I won’t.” “Wait, somewhere I have dried pineapple! I can be thrifty and use something I have, even if it’s in a form that I wouldn’t choose first! I chose it once for some reason; I can choose it again!”
This has been the to-and-fro for all kinds of things in this pandemic. Focusing on food — on the tangible, on things we make with our hands in our homes, and maybe arrange and appreciate for a moment of beauty, and then take into our bodies and, if we are lucky, share with others — is such a sustaining practice. Part of that is that back-and-forth between scarcity and abundance, between wanting something familiar and discovering something new (Like the craggy biscuits I learned to make when I wanted to use up some aging milk, and all those sourdough loaves being made at home). Even your yard foraging points to this. What can we make with what we have at hand? And I’m not just talking about food now.
OK, so to today’s prompt: “Begin with a poem of decision, that features your next topic or food.”
What Does Spelt Want?
Your name recalls grade school lists
from another century: a column
of words a child mastered because
she spelt them with her own hand.
I had a point of reference for the other
flours that came in the CSA boxes:
buckwheat, whole wheat, pastry, bread.
I know what to do with cornmeal. But
you came in two forms: flour and berries,
neither of which I knew what to do with.
I used up the others, looked up recipes
while keeping you in cold storage.
What do you want to become? What
other waiting foods would give you
shape, texture, flavor, meaning?
Spell it out for me. It’s time.
L.L. Barkat says
I love your poem, Laura. I love the way it’s about food, but about more than that, too.
The craggy biscuits sound delicious (I’d love to be the one you share with! 🙂 ). We’re now making everything dairy-free, because we discovered that one of us has serious milk sensitivities. Well. This has meant the cutting out of so many of our go-to comfort foods and go-to ways of making our comfort foods. All on top of everything else that’s been happening. For the person in our house who has the sensitivities it’s just one more grief piled on top of others. And yet. There have been the most daring and delicious discoveries along the way. I am now using carrot juice as a substitute in recipes that call for milk or water. This resulted in the most absolutely amazing pizza crust we’ve ever made! 🙂 )