The Hungry Ear

Read The Hungry Ear Online

Authors: Kevin Young

CONTENTS

Kevin Young

Introduction

Joy Harjo

Perhaps the World Ends Here

I. Harvest Moon

 

FIRST HARVEST

 

Mary Oliver

August

Seamus Heaney

Blackberry-Picking

Robert Hass

Meditation at Lagunitas

Galway Kinnell

Blackberry Eating

Yusef Komunyakaa

Blackberries

Wendell Berry

Fall

Louise Glück

Vespers

Ruth Stone

Pokeberries

Robert Frost

After Apple-Picking

Dorianne Laux

A Short History of the Apple

Jack Gilbert

Hunger

James Applewhite

Collards

Lucille Clifton

cutting greens

GIVING THANKS

 

Seamus Heaney

Oysters

Natasha Trethewey

Invocation, 1926

Elizabeth Bishop

The Fish

Mark Doty

A Display of Mackerel

Billy Collins

The Fish

Adrienne Su

Four Sonnets About Food

Mary Oliver

Farm Country

Kevin Young

Ode to Chicken

Harriet Maxwell Converse

The Thanksgivings

Campbell McGrath

What They Ate

Rick Moranis

My Days Are Numbered

Sharon Olds

First Thanksgiving

CHURNING & PRESERVING

 

Elizabeth Alexander

Butter

Linton Hopkins

Ode to Butter

Ruth Stone

American Milk

Liz Waldner

Sad Verso of the Sunny________

Les Murray

The Butter Factory

Donald Hall

O Cheese

Ted Kooser

Applesauce

Kevin Young

The Preserving

Theodore Roethke

Root Cellar

Thomas Lux

Refrigerator, 1957

II. Wintering

 

SOUP LINES & STAPLES

 

Charles Reznikoff

Te Deum

Langston Hughes

I, Too, Sing America

William Carlos Williams

To a Poor Old Woman

Jane Kenyon

At the IGA: Franklin, New Hampshire

John Olivares Espinoza

Economics at Gemco

Martín Espada

The Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry Stomp

Campbell McGrath

Capitalist Poem #5

Yusef Komunyakaa

Sugar

Cornelius Eady

Sherbet

Tracy K. Smith

Appetite

Gwendolyn Brooks

The Bean Eaters

Les Murray

The Broad Bean Sermon

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Beans: An Apologia for Not Loving to Cook

Sharon Olds

Bread

MEAT & POTATOES

 

Billy Collins

Osso Bucco

George Bilgere

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Mark Strand

Pot Roast

Richard Wilbur

Potato

Jane Kenyon

Potato

Yusef Komunyakaa

Banking Potatoes

Rennie McQuilkin

The Digging

Linda Hogan

Potatoes

Seamus Heaney

from
Clearances

OFFERINGS

 

Naomi Shihab Nye

Arabic Coffee

Matthew Dickman

Coffee

Sharan Strange

Offering

Patricia Smith

When the Burning Begins

Margaret Gibson

The Onion

Stephen Dobyns

Tomatoes

Kevin Young

Ode to Gumbo

Rosanna Warren

Orchard

Donald Hall

Maple Syrup

W. D. Snodgrass

Lasting

Jane Hirshfield

Spell to Be Said After Illness

Jane Kenyon

Eating the Cookies

Charles Simic

The Soup

August Kleinzahler

Christmas in Chinatown

Sylvia Plath

Wintering

III. Spring Rain

 

PIG OUT

 

Kevin Young

Ode to Pork

Carol Ann Duffy

Circe

Howard Nemerov

Bacon & Eggs

Roy Blount Jr
.

Song to Bacon

Catherine Bowman

1-800-Hot-Ribs

Honorée Jeffers

The Gospel of Barbecue

William Matthews

Sooey Generous

Thylias Moss

Remembering Kitchens

Roy Blount Jr
.

Song to Barbecue Sauce

Jake Adam York

United States of Barbecue

DOWN THE HATCH

 

Rumi

We have a huge barrel of wine …

Li Po

Waiting for Wine That Doesn't Come Something Said, Waking Drunk on a Spring Day

Tony Hoagland

Jet

Wyn Cooper

Fun

William Matthews

Another Beer

Frank O'Hara

Beer for Breakfast

W. B. Yeats

A Drinking Song

Paul Zimmer

Two Drinking Songs

James Wright

Two Hangovers

Lynn Emanuel

Frying Trout While Drunk

Philip Larkin

Party Politics

Charles Baudelaire

Be Drunk

Harryette Mullen

from
Muse & Drudge

Billy Collins

Litany

Larry Levis

Picking Grapes in an Abandoned Vineyard

Adrian C. Louis

The Fine Printing on the Label of a Bottle of Nonalcohol Beer

Theodore Roethke

My Papa's Waltz

SEASONINGS

 

Pablo Neruda

Ode to Salt

 

Ode to the Onion

Garlic

Jane Kenyon

Fat

Roddy Lumsden

Specific Hunger

Les Murray

Vindaloo in Merthyr Tydfil

Craig Arnold

Hot

Jimmy Santiago Baca

Green Chile

Garrett Hongo

Yellow Light

William Matthews

Onions

Adrienne Rich

Peeling Onions

Denise Levertov

Stepping Westward

IV. Sweet Summer

 

SHORT ORDERS

 

Frank O'Hara

Having a Coke with You

Joe Wenderoth

from
Letters to Wendy's

Campbell McGrath

Woe

Brenda Hillman

Food

Minnie Bruce Pratt

Breakfast

Lynda Hull

Night Waitress

Jack Gilbert

1953

Judith Ortiz Cofer

The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica

Martín Espada

Coca-Cola and Coco Frío

Frank O'Hara

A Step Away from Them

Erin Belieu

Love Is Not an Emergency

Richard Hugo

Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

DINNER FOR TWO

 

Amy Lowell

Interlude

Robert Frost

Putting in the Seed

Robert Hass

Poem with a Cucumber in It

Gertrude Stein

from
Tender Buttons

Mary Swander

Ode to Okra

Allen Ginsberg

A Supermarket in California

Gertrude Stein

Susie Asado

Michael C. Blumenthal

Squid

Mary Oliver

Mushrooms

Sylvia Plath

Mushrooms

Jane Hirshfield

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

 

A Sweetening All Around Me as It Falls

Paul Muldoon

Holy Thursday

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Never May the Fruit Be Plucked

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

 

William Carlos Williams

This Is Just to Say

Gary Soto

The Plum's Heart

Rita Dove

Grape Sherbet

Craig Arnold

Meditation on a Grapefruit

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