Potluck, Poetry, and (Unrequited) Platonic Love
On Wednesday, the class met at Minton’s to:
I. Gorge ourselves
II. Take part in a love-letter writing workshop
III. Bask in Bianca’s presence
Part I-I
A few notes on the art of mashed potato making:
I. When you go to Kroger, your brain is going to be like “Kremena said there could be upwards of 30 people there... you should probably buy a second bag of potatoes.”
A. If your brain is like mine, don’t listen to it.
i. It’s a liar.
ii. It’s kind of dumb.
B. You’re also working on the assumption that all 30 of these potential attendees will be so enamored with your shitty mashed potatoes that they will be forced to cast off the rest of the potluck bounty and consume every last bit of what you make.
i. That is an incorrect assumption. (See I-I.I.A.ii)
II. Method:
A. Quarter and Boil apprx. 90 lbs of redskin potatoes until tender.
i. This will require every pot and burner you have, and some that you don’t.
B. Drain
i. I would be greatly impressed if you managed to mess this up
ii. I messed this part up.
C.Throw in a pallet of butter, a drum of cream, a desk of romano cheese, a hammock of garlic, and oregano/salt/pepper to taste.
D.Mash the cuss out of it.
i. Really just get in there.
Part I-II
A Veritable Smorgasbord
I. Once twelve people helped me drag all of my mashed potatoes into Minton’s, we all set about a very lovely meal which consisted of:
A. Potato Salad
B. Mashed Potatoes
C. Chicken casserole
D. Two leafy salads
E. Some oranges
F. This amazing cold apple/sweet-potato/craisin stuff
G. Hummus and Gaucomole
H. Black Bean Salsa
I. Carrot/Cayenne Juice (a la The Juicery)
J. Various Breads
K. Some really delicious looking wine (that I was 11 months removed from) courtesy of Archie
L. Several Desserts
M. A wonderful tomato soup made my Ashely Minton Herself.
Part II.
With our stomachs full, and our spirits high, we were all called to attention by Kurt (via Marty) in order to begin our love-letter writing workshop.
I. Bianca. Spriggs. Was. Sitting. Right. There.
A. I had a couple of heart attacks
B. Several “stomach-dwelling-insects” were in flight.
II. After recovering from that miniature freak out over my woman crush, I realized that she was in the process of giving us tips on love-letter writing.
A. Bianca’s 10 Tips for Writing a Contemporary Love Poem:
i. Don’t actually mention the word love
ii.Every poem, but especially love poems, are really disguised obsessions.
iii. Cliches are no good
iv. Consider extended metaphors
v.Write about love in binaries (negatives and positives)
vi. Make the impersonal Personal
vii. Read “the greats”
viii. Name love by naming what it is not
ix. be willing to make sacrifice for, and mention the risk in, loving your love
x.Memorize and forget i-ix.
III. We were then given a worksheet entitled “Mirror Poem Exercise”
A. Bianca was inches away from me when she handed our table those worksheets.
i. She even smells amazing. Why don’t I smell that good?
ii. I’m beginning to think she some fierce mythical creature and/or figment of my imagination
B. In this exercise, we read “Love Is” by Nikki Giovanni and were asked to recreate it.
i. Putting my inferior words into someone else’s form made me feel dirty.
ii. She complimented on my hair color while volunteering me to read my linguistic frankenstein
1. I’m never changing my hair color for the rest of my life.
IV. She then introduced us to some poetry to highlight the beauty of the unconventional in modern love poems. We listened to:
A. “The Last Love Letter From An Entomologist” by Jared Singer
B. “Maybe I Need You” by Andrea Gibson
V. Our final activity was a mad-lib-esque love portrait
A. We were asked to think of objects from 22 different categories that describe our “love-object” and use them to fill in the blanks of another poem form.
i. Again, I felt like a sham.
Our class concluded with a playing of “Set me Free” (By an artist un-recalled-- but I am determined to find out.) It was a lovely evening.
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