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 2004
Thanksgiving Dinner : A Menu Poem
Guest of Honor: Kent Johnson
"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
—G.K.Chesterton
epigram
When I die and they bring my ashes to rest at Gary’s World of Miniatures roadside attraction
We will pass their diminutive version of the Vietnam War Memorial, the Eiffel Tower, The Great Wall and the Pyramids, the Seattle Space Needle, the Sidney Opera House....
will wander past the United Nations building, and off by the "It’s a Small World" area sits the styrofoam model of the Vatican
In the round area of St. Peter’s Square they will empty my ashes from the urn
and my scattered form will be the very essence of americana
and in that moment may I find the great poets gone before - I will tell them Kent Johnson was my friend And you’d damn well better watch out
