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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 2019
A Rocket Full of Pie
Guest of Honor : Michael Basinski
Hello and welcome to the 2019 Thanksgiving Menu-Poem. This is the eighteenth incarnation of the Thanksgiving Menu-Poem! Our guest of honor is the magnificent Michael Basinski. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with Mike over many years. BlazeVOX has published several of his books, including Trailers, All My Eggs Are Broken and we have a new book in the works, titled, Salvage.
Over the decades Mike has been a friend, a mentor, a supporter and guide towards my understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the poem. I have long admired how Mike can interrogate a poem and find all the right answers. Like a word that is spoken too often and lost all meaning, my belief in language falls out of existence in a Basinski poem. I find comfort in the charisma and struggle pasted and Sharpie-drawn into his collage poems. And his work in Fluxus leaves me feeling woozy. I hope that this menu-poem adequately expresses my appreciation for Mike while creating a sense of harmony that interprets my understanding of his work.
I hope you enjoy this meal, the menu and the poem. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Rockets, Geoffrey