WordGarden

Reinvent yourself.

I pulled my canoe to a muddy bank on the North Platte River where it winds through the high desert of southern Wyoming. I had gone there over the weekend with a few friends for a bit of recreation.

Recreation. Re-creation.

While my buddy Steve and I waited for the other canoes to arrive, we kicked back a bit—cool water, breeze, hot sun, and all the scents of the riverbottom around us. Then I noticed this dessicated shell of an insect just a foot away from me. I cannot say what, exactly, this creature is since I lack much knowledge of entomology.

Look closely. Notice how the legs have gripped onto several shafts of grass, creating a pyramidical scaffold; the legs are locked in a tight embrace, no doubt necessary for this creature to shed its skin.

And that, friends, is just what it did. You can see the gap in the back of the carapace where the metamorphosed insect tore itself free of its old skin. How brilliant is that.

It struck me that we all need such re-creation at times. The old shell we’ve built, perhaps necessary to get by from day to day, becomes binding and restrictive. The old self no longer works efficiently and change begins to happen internally until we reach a point where we have to break free of what binds us.

Recreation is meant to do this, short term. However, sometimes more drastic measures are called for.

I have a sense this insect’s reinvention of self was not painless. Clearly, there was struggle and clearly, something significant was left behind.

I pulled out from that riverbank with a little bit of insight. The river opened up before me, and branched in two directions. “Which way?” I queried my friend behind me in the canoe. But I already knew.

Chili peppers—in this case, Anaheim. When these reach maturity in a couple weeks, they’ll be 7-8 inches long and a deep green color. I’ll pick a dozen, roast them on a grill, and peel off the charred skin, leaving a slick, sweet, slightly hot package of heaven. Then I’ll slit the crown just enough to admit a finger and I’ll reach in and clear away the seeds. I’ll slide a strip of Monterey Jack cheese inside, dredge the chili in rice-flour batter, and give it a quick deep-fry (expeller-pressed canola or safflower oil) until golden brown. Serve that up with some cilantro rice, pico de gallo, a side of black beans that have simmered overnight in a crock, and of course, a cold beer. Afterwards, the best bet is to lie in a hammock, beer #2 in hand, and a good novel to read until the light fails, a signal to doze off.

This, friends, is the beginning of an eggplant, a beautiful lavender colored blossom that the bees can’t leave alone. Eggplants love heat and not much water; it’s amazing to watch them thrive in July’s furnace, even as I starve them slightly for moisture. By mid-August the limbs will be heavy with large, purple-black globes, so heavy that I’ll have to tie the plants up to a stake. I take two fruits, peel them and chop the spongy meat into 1-inch cubes, and parboil that for about 7 minutes. I’ll strain and press the moisture from them and process this all down to a paste, then add garlic, parmesan, and bread crumbs, along with some seasoning. Then it’s a matter of rolling the mix into little golfballs and frying these in (again, healthy) oil until crisp and golden-brown outside, tender inside. Top with yogurt mixed with mint and shredded cucumber. Voila! Eggplant polpettes, a refreshing meal. Don’t forget a nice chilled glass or three of Pinot Grigio. To finish, see note above about hammock.

There aren’t words to describe the pleasures of basil. I mean, really, if you don’t know about this, you aren’t living. All you have to do to feel a small but intense joy is to brush against a basil leaf—that’s all—and you’ll release a cloud of perfume that will make your tongue quiver. Consider how much more amazing it is to gather a basket of leaves on a sunny evening. The French bread warms in the oven. The homemade pasta hangs on tines in the kitchen. A bottle of Chianti breathes on the counter (very likely, it has already been sampled). A crisp green salad chills in the fridge. I give the leaves a quick rinse under cold water and dump them in the food processor with pine nuts, garlic, a pinch of salt, and olive oil. A few quick pulses later I’m ready to toss the aromatic mixture with a handful of fresh-grated parmesan. The noodles, being freshly made, need only 3 minutes or so in the boiling water. The whole meal comes together rapidly—great heaping spoonfuls of fresh basil pesto over creamy noodles, crusty bread on the side, a cool salad, and plenty of wine. Again, post-supper activity involves hammock, as above.

Sure, they’re both unripe and hard as rocks; a gardener calls that a promise—the patience-training promise of fruit that will yield amazing flavor when it completes its arc. In this case, you can see the slightest hint of yellow on the shoulder of the chili pepper, a Cubanelle that will be sweet, crisp, juicy, and mild when ripe. I’ll pick that, along with a serrano or two, some Anaheims (that I’ll roast), a sweet banana pepper and a couple Hungarian hot wax chilis. I’ll roast up a few cloves of garlic and smash them into the stone surface of my molcajete, a large, Mexican mortar-and-pestle made from lava rock. Once I’ve got the right consistency of garlic paste, I’ll mash in the roasted Anaheims. Then I’ll chop up the other peppers and stir them in. A few squeezes of lime juice and a dash of salt bring out flavor and low-burn heat. Then last, but certainly not least, I’ll roast up several of those homegrown, heirloom tomatoes; I’ll peel and seed them, then gently mash the fruit into the mixture in my molcajete. A sprinkle of fresh cilantro might help. While the flavors blend, I’ll cut corn tortillas into wedges and quick fry them (healthy oils, please) and salt the crisp chips lightly. Serve this salsa to people who have grown deadened to canned imposters and stale, store-bought chips. Have cold beer handy. Hammock, etc.

These are a few of my favorite things. Summer has crested; I can see it in the garden as the plants, previously straining for the sun, now spread a bit and set great clusters of blossoms, each in a pre-determined sequence. Of course the sweet corn keeps up its freakish climb, not quite ready for its profusion of tassles and ears, but that will come.

The garden tells me, at this precise moment, that summer is turning. For the next ten weeks or so friends and family will wallow in the bounty, soak up the vitamins, run a symphony of flavors over our tongues pretty much every night. Life is good.

You can have this, too, if you don’t already. Resolve to plant a garden. Start small, build slowly, explore and learn. If you don’t have an appropriate plot, find a community garden, or look into starting one nearby. If you have questions about how to begin, post a comment here and I’ll do what I can to give you a boost.

I read recently that as many as 40 percent of households grew “victory gardens” during WWII, a movement that was soon afterwards sent into decline by the unfortunate changes in the American food supply that have led us to destructive and unhealthy practices. I also read, in an ironic mirroring of this figure, that 40 percent of all foods in a typical grocery store now contain corn or corn-based byproducts. That’s making us sick; diabetes, obesity, and heart disease . . . ah, well, this is where my knowledge grows thin and I must leave it to those who know more than I do of these matters.

But I know this: small gardens are the future. Americans are coming to consciousness, slowly, about the benefits of eating locally, organically, and with a persistent nod to health. Nothing satisfies these criteria better than food grown in your own yard or in a community garden plot. Get with the future. Join us.

river

vision

revision

envision

immersion

diversion

I went for a walk one evening on the Beara Peninsula in southwest Ireland.

I’d always wanted to do that—go for a walk down an Irish road. It took me 46 years to get there, which was a long wait. But we must live in the moment, not in a past that is gone and a future that may never be. In that moment, I was surrounded by surreal beauty, a sensory overload, the kind of stimulation that only comes when one is a stranger in a foreign land.

The sky threatened rain, and made good on the threat, but not with a torrent. Rather, moisture came on slowly, hardly more than a heavily laden sea breeze at first, turning slowly to a mist, thence to something between mist and rain, and finally peaking and reversing down the scale again until the steady breeze dried my hair and shirt.

It was nearly 10 p.m. and shortly thereafter, the late-setting sun slid beneath the clouds, pausing on the surface of the Atlantic, splaying gold across the landscape and setting loose perfumes from the wet greenery in bloom everywhere.

One cannot capture such moments. Words play at the edges but can’t fill the void. Photographs flatten the visual field, dull the color. Only a human body, the ultimate earthly receptor, can properly experience the moment—hooked as it is to blessed imagination and our ability to ponder and represent. So I took it all in, and since I am left with only these options, pulled out my notebook and wrote a few lines, snapped a photo (above) at the junction of several roads, storm clouds plowing over the Caha Mountains in the distance.

I’m back in Denver now after spending more than a month in Ireland. I toured the west coast from south to north, slipped into Dublin for a few days, and saw everything in between that I could see.

There were rain-swollen rivers like the Kealincha . . .

and placid rivers like the Suil and Cong.

There were mysterious and lonely stone circles, standing for millennia like this one at Ardgroom . . .

and somber megalithic tombs whose secrets we’ll never fully understand.

I could tell you just where to find the 4,000-year-old tomb pictured above but you know, it lay among a complex of similar sites and I and my companion had the whole place to ourselves that afternoon—so I think it best to keep such secrets. Forgive me.

We wandered far and wide in Ireland. We climbed peaks, including the magnificent Croagh Patrick, unable to decide which was more stunning, the view from the base of the mountain . . .

or from its peak, looking across the brilliant waters of Clew Bay . . .

Even as I write this essay, and place these images among the words, I know some will say I’m romanticizing the place. I don’t care about that. Ireland is indeed a very special place. Life goes on for the people on this island as it has for more than 5,000 years. There are births and deaths and jobs to do, there are joys and heartaches. There was nothing romantic about the street person cursing me out on the Ha’Penny Bridge in Dublin, nor about the puny and weak American dollars I waved around at the currency exchange desk.

But brothers and sisters, I am glad to have gone where I have gone . . .

to have seen what I have seen . . .

and to have quenched my thirst afterward with some fecking grand beer (on site at the brewery, I might add).

Slainte!

An herb garden is a beautiful thing in May.

At this precise moment—the second week in May—gardeners in the Denver area are playing a game of cat-and-mouse with the killing frost. With any luck, we’re past the last frost and free to put our more tender annuals into the ground. But it’s always possible we’ll be treated to a deep cold yet, a killing frost that wipes out all but the heartiest of plants, and that danger is real for several more weeks.

This is why an herb garden is so marvelous. Look at these chives, which have overwintered very well and now are the crowning glory of the herb patch.

I get up in the morning, cut a fistful of these pungent stalks, and chop them up while the coffee brews. I toss them into my scrambled eggs, season with some salt & pepper, sprinkle a little cheddar over the top, and voila, I have a fine breakfast indeed. I love eating out of the garden this early in the season, and I can add any of the herbs above to dishes to give me the spark of flavor I’ve missed all winter.

In fact, I think I’ll be cutting into this brilliant bush of French tarragon in the next couple of days to make a bright, peppery pesto. And since fresh herbs deserve the best, I’ll make up some home-made noodles, home-baked French bread, and some home-brewed pinot noir. That dinner ought to please my baby.

Meanwhile, the salad garden is well on its way, with new sprouts of lettuce, mizuna, spinach, endive greens, arugula rocket, and radicchio, a few of which are featured right here.

We’ll have fresh salads within a couple of weeks and with the right tending—and because these are in a cool patch of microclimate within the garden—the greens should last quite a while before bolting.

I was a bit tired earlier this spring when I faced the work of putting the garden together for the year. But now that green is bursting out all over the place, I’m in my happy place again.

April is Poetry Month. Perhaps you’ve heard this said in recent weeks and it begs the question: what does it mean for the rest of the year?

I admit I’ll be happy to see this month close out, as it completes the most frantic and busy time of my year, both in terms of celebrating the art and because the academic year at my college comes to an end. I look forward to the open space afterwards, not because it is empty of poetry but quite the opposite—because I can read poetry again for pleasure and to help me slow down.

Consider this quote from M.S. Merwin.

Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You’ve got to stop what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and what you’re expecting and just be there for the poem no matter how long it takes.

That pretty much sums it up. Merwin is saying what many of us may have discovered, or rediscovered, during the past month: poetry is good for us. It encourages good health, mental and physical. It slows us down and replaces distraction with concentration. It’s a meditation, a practice, a deliberate act that can heal the fragmented places in us.

I hope anyone who reads this entry will take a moment at some point after poetry month to discover a new poem, and perhaps many of them throughout the year.

I’ll be in Cody, Wyoming, tomorrow to speak to the Wyoming Master Gardener’s Conference.

Does this mean I’m a master gardener? No, it certainly does not. I am hardly a master gardener. I consider myself in training, and based on the experiences I’ve had, I know that I’ll probably never master this pursuit.

I do manage a good harvest of vegetables most years.

(more…)

Wise gardeners learn patience, if not from a mentor from experience itself. Somewhere along the way their enthusiasm may have existed in greater measure than their wisdom and that is how they learned patience. Here’s a graphic depiction of how I learned it.

It’s late April on the Front Range of the Rockies. Just two days ago I was riding my bike home from work and breaking a serious sweat as I mumbled about how the days of hot sun had finally arrived. (more…)

It was standing room only at the Wynkoop Mercantile room where bards told tales of the ten greatest dark beers, the existential dilemma of encountering a former lover at a bar with her new beau, and all the possible monikers one poet could apply to his favorite body part. Yes, that one.

In short, we wrestled poetry out of the sterile classrooms where it is routinely strip-searched. We cuckolded the critics who propound on the necessity for poetry to be obtuse and difficult for the sake of its own difficulty. We airlifted the comatose body of post-postmodern verse out of the stultifying desert wastelands of theoretical langpo and resuscitated it for the good people at the best poetry party Denver has ever seen. There was beer, music, laughter, and camaraderie around the literary art this community so loves.

I’ve been attending poetry readings of various kinds since my college days in the early 80s but I’ve never seen one like the Liquid Poetry bash at Wynkoop last night.

There were an estimated 140 people in attendance; it was literally standing room only, with every seat occupied and people lining the walls to catch a bit of the poetry pouring everywhere.

Lest you imagine that I’m exaggerating when I say something magical happened, consider the evidence of your own eyes. Here’s one of the featured poets, JD Frey, in before and after photos. Note how he appears before he pours a little liquid poetry, and how he appears after.

before after

Is that not enough evidence? How about another pair of images, this time featuring guest poet and Godfather of independent creative writing here in Denver, Mike Henry, Executive Director of Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

before after

And do you still doubt? Then let’s put such doubts to rest with one more set of proofs, this time featuring poet and performer Joy Sawyer, who before the packed house had only the fourth sip of beer ever in her life—and clearly, it was enough liquid poetry to create the magic effect.

before after

Believe me, we could sit around forever and debate the purpose poetry has in our society, in our city, in our lives. No one is more qualified to engage in this kind of dialectic than poets. But last night, we put all debate aside and we gathered for two purposes that were clear to all involved.

The first was simply to enjoy the moment—to soak in the pleasure of language and performance while soaking up some delicious ale. The second was to convert this movement and energy toward helping others to access and enjoy books.

I’m happy to say that both purposes were fully realized—just ask novelist Bill Henderson and Mike Henry, who just looks pleased as he can be. That spirit was everywhere in the room.

We sold every Liquid Poetry pint glass in the house and people were asking for more. Word is a special order of glasses will be made immediately, and should be on site at Wynkoop by the end of this coming week. So please, head on down, sample some Liquid Poetry before its gone, and buy a pint glass; proceeds will continue to funnel to Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic here in Denver.

Special thanks go out to Marty Jones, who did the yeoman’s share of work to make this event happen. Marty, here with JD Frey, is a great guy with whom to collaborate, and we’re already talking about taking the success that is Liquid Poetry on the road to brewpubs up and down the Front Range.

If you missed last night’s event, you missed a good one. But frankly, we wouldn’t have been able to fit you in the Mercantile Room. I hope to repeat the event next April, so watch for announcements on that. Meanwhile, get down to Wynkoop and pitch in by buying a Liquid Poetry pint glass and helping out RFB&D.

Cheers!

What does it mean—to stand on a city streetcorner on a Friday night and recite poems while people walk by?

Why would anyone do such a thing? (more…)