Episode 129: Chew on This

What's your love language, Slushies? Is it touch, or talk? Recipes or arithmetic? Join us for this episode devoted to poems by Jin Cordaro, whose work strikes an incantatory tone, draws us in, and gets us chewing on the riddles of the human predicament. How do our bodies know things before our minds do? How do other people's shopping lists make us ache for connection? We focus on the art of lists, the arc of poems, and the power of a poet's voice to invite and hold the reader's attention.

In post-production we discovered the poem “Flavor in the Hands” was accepted elsewhere. It will appear in Bacopa Literary Review in the future, and we’re delighted for Jin.

A link we think you might like:

 

Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia

 

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Samantha Neugebauer, and Holly Messitt, as well as our briefly larger than normal tech team Heath Bailey, Jess Fielo, and Vivian Liu (without whom we’d be lost!)

At four feet seven inches, Jin Cordaro believes she holds the record for most petite living poet. Having had twins, she also believes she holds the record for most times people have asked, “They came from you?” Her work has appeared in The Sun, Faultline, Smartish Pace, and Bacopa Literary Review, and has been featured on the podcast The Slowdown. She and her family live in central New Jersey.

 

That Time You Stole Someone’s Shopping Cart

 

With their shopping list in the seat,

and a flower doodled in the corner – a sign

not a curse or a prayer, a devotion,

a singular language

to nourish and be nourished.

 

Familiar words, combined in a cipher,

you can only translate every third word –

paprika followed by shallots means

to put effort or caring.

Cranberries combined with pecans

and butternut squash means

to sustain, keep well.

 

What would this taste like?

This list a thin opaque crepe filled with

the soft, oozing breadth of someone’s attention

and time. You slip it into your jacket

keep your hand on your pocket as

you walk the store. Rush home

to unfold it, imagine it still warm,

slightly browned on a skillet,

sweet and bready with love.

You chew it slowly –

the only piece of food

to be found.

 

The Sum of One

 

1/3 parent + 1/3 employee + 1/3 spouse 

does not equal 1 whole you but

permutations of you.

Only one can execute its function

at any given time.

 

Requirements call for 

1 ½ parent you + 1 ½ work you + 1 ½ spouse you = 

invalid calculation. Insufficient source.

Multiply by a factor of

school concert x illness x hosting holiday = 

exponentially negative integer you. 

Divide this number by

the number of your children,

given age as a factor of x.

 

Write a proof that demonstrates

1 you – job + bills = increase in sanity? 

Or 1/3 parent you – cleaning toilets – cooking = 

increase in you? 

 

You are the product of division.

You ÷ x = disappearing you

reduced to null an imaginary unit 

when all you want is to be prime 

divisible by only 1 and yourself.

 

But 0 too can be divided by any number 

and still remain the same