Food Poetry: a discussion/starter log
Is it fair to say that most of the women I know and love have an affinity with food that actually distinguishes them from the men in my life? Of course it's fair, but how do we talk about women and food without reinforcing traditional domestic attributes or symbolism onto people who I would consider radical and non-traditional? Lately I have been feeling like accepting more traditional associations with womanhood, white womanhood, I suppose. God damnit I am in charge of my kitchen, I labor away over the stove struggling to conjur up meals that make me feel worth something. Fuck me if I don't like throwing on a house dress and apron then whipping up a few crepes. In my coy and manipulative voice I speak softly, "So how is it baby? Do you like it? Did I do a good job?" Am I role playing? I mean really. Of course I did a good job. My tofu scramble is the shit. But there is something lingering that is severely problematic.
Woman's food and kitchen culture provides a safe space, as I have learned from many brilliant writers. Safe spaces are guarded from but also constructed by certain hegemonic ideologies. I concede to these hegemonies. But there is something about vegetarianism that has radically transformed the way I perceive myself and my own femininity especially how it is performed via domestic creativity. . Actually, booting the flesh gives me the power to balance femininity with power and creativity. Ethics become the binding agent of who you are and what you eat. And why wouldn't a woman who is metaphorically consumed by society on a daily basis commiserate and cooperate with that which is consumed quite literally. I think Carol Adams calls this similar experience that of the absent referent...
So let's pick a few artichoke leaves away here. It's not like we can just say that veggies are peaceful, righteous and meat is aggressive and murderous. Although, I do mostly agree with that. BUT Plenty of herbicides have ruined farm laborers lives. The corn and soy industry does plenty of destroying as well. WAIT, DOES EQUATING FEMININITY WITH PACIFISM AND VEGETARIANISM MAKE ME AN OUTDATED RADICAL FEMINIST? Or a Christian suffragette? Or any other brand of whiteness and feminism that I can beat down with the theory stick in another blog post or two? :-) MAYBE Lucille can help. (lucille clifton, good woman: poems and memoir)
cutting greens
curling them around
i hole their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere
Is it also weird that I look to texts by women of color to check my fool ass?
Just some things to ponder over some Maple French Twists and Royal Coconut Pouchong Tea, courtesy of Tealuxe.
Woman's food and kitchen culture provides a safe space, as I have learned from many brilliant writers. Safe spaces are guarded from but also constructed by certain hegemonic ideologies. I concede to these hegemonies. But there is something about vegetarianism that has radically transformed the way I perceive myself and my own femininity especially how it is performed via domestic creativity. . Actually, booting the flesh gives me the power to balance femininity with power and creativity. Ethics become the binding agent of who you are and what you eat. And why wouldn't a woman who is metaphorically consumed by society on a daily basis commiserate and cooperate with that which is consumed quite literally. I think Carol Adams calls this similar experience that of the absent referent...
So let's pick a few artichoke leaves away here. It's not like we can just say that veggies are peaceful, righteous and meat is aggressive and murderous. Although, I do mostly agree with that. BUT Plenty of herbicides have ruined farm laborers lives. The corn and soy industry does plenty of destroying as well. WAIT, DOES EQUATING FEMININITY WITH PACIFISM AND VEGETARIANISM MAKE ME AN OUTDATED RADICAL FEMINIST? Or a Christian suffragette? Or any other brand of whiteness and feminism that I can beat down with the theory stick in another blog post or two? :-) MAYBE Lucille can help. (lucille clifton, good woman: poems and memoir)
cutting greens
curling them around
i hole their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere
Is it also weird that I look to texts by women of color to check my fool ass?
Just some things to ponder over some Maple French Twists and Royal Coconut Pouchong Tea, courtesy of Tealuxe.
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