Food Studies Matter, Meaning, Movement Creative Poetics and Politics, David Szanto

CREATIVE POETICS AND POLITICS DAVID POETICS AND POLITICS David is a teacher , consultant , and artist taking an experimental approach to gastronomy and food systems . Past projects include meal performances about urban , immersive sensory installations , and interventions involving food , microbes , humans , and digital technology . David has taught at several universities in Canada and Europe and has written extensively on food , art , and performance . HOT WRITING Sometimes poetry can make a big impact with just a few words . A poet I once worked with called it a hot form of writing , meaning that each word has to do a have to be intense , loaded with meaning , and burn brightly . It also means that the 36 POETICS AND POLITICS

poet has to do a lot , picking words that carry the right amount of heat , and then treating them carefully so that they dont burn too much . The first poem below was written when I was thinking about how guilty I feel when I eat an ordinary meal . Ordinary means that I dont go out of my way to buy local or seasonal food , that I do succumb to styrofoam , or that I overconsume and then end up wasting something . Because even though all those things are very important to me and my planet , sometimes . just . can . The poems title evokes my sense of throwing up my hands and ing oh well , tomorrow I do The second poem was my attempt to streamline years or so of food systems evolution into a quick little ditty . It meant to be read with an ironically arched eyebrow , acknowledging that an awful lot of stuff happened in between each of the stanzas . At the same time , when you compress time a bit , you sometimes see new patterns in past events , and new ones for the future . A lovely dinner nonetheless Tawny dazzling bird Spirals lies around my tongue Battery chicken Root of celery in creamy nap Not very local Shining Granny Smith Juices glaze the hot browned crumb Flesh reduced to mush DAVID 37

The Bio of Diversity In the beginning Elemental eV Primordial ooze Limiting controlling food Domestication In Earth Let all industrialize ! Variety wanes . 38 POETICS AND POLITICS Soy corn rice and wheat Break them down to Rebuilt with branding Phoenix trussed and cooked But was it our goose instead ?

Blackened . DAVID 39 Discussion Questions 40 POETICS AND POLITICS When is saying less more important ( or more effective ) than saying more ?

How can we express complex ideas about food with minimal ( or no ) language ?

What food words , to you , are hot ?

Exercises Both of the poems above are written following a modified haiku style , form of poetry that is written in three lines ( the first with five syllables , the next with seven , and the final with five again ) Word play and references to nature are often included , and the third line generally incorporates a twist that is meant to delight or surprise the reader , and make them think about the first two lines . Try writing a single haiku , about food , following this model . What is easy about it and what is hard ?

How did it make you think differently about your subject , and if you read it to someone else , does it make them think the same way ?

Do they have a different take on it that you did ?

Why ?

You can also write compound , like the ones above , to tell a more complex story or invoke structural patterns like dishes in a meal , the changing seasons and food cycles , or the different days you celebrate . Once you ve had fun with , try a longer form poem . What is different when the length changes ?

DAVID 41 You can also tighten things up by writing a story , a form of fiction that tells a lot with very little . This means coming up with only the most important combination of words , often without proper grammar or syntax , to telegraph a feeling or a narrative into the reader mind . Talk about hot writing . 42 POETICS AND POLITICS