Poetry and Food
Feast on this smorgasbord of poems about eating and cooking, exploring our relationships with food.
BY The Editors
The Raspberry Room
Karin Gottshall
Harvest Song
Jean Toomer
Blackberrying
Sylvia Plath
- Zilka Joseph
- Charles Atkinson
In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden
Matthea Harvey
Oystering
Richard Howard
September Tomatoes
Karina Borowicz
Fanny
Carolyn Kizer
From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
Blackberry-Picking
Seamus Heaney
Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts
Mark Halliday
América
Richard Blanco
Scrapple
Afaa Michael Weaver
- John Repp
My dad & sardines
Toi Derricotte
Food
Brenda Hillman
Grandpa Vogt’s—1959
Ben Vogt
- Joel Brouwer
Family Reunion
Maxine Kumin
Self-Portrait as So Much Potential
Chen Chen
Persimmons
Li-Young Lee
- Lynn Emanuel
Going Home: New Orleans
Sheryl St. Germain
The Gospel of Barbecue
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Women Whose Lives are Food, Men Whose Lives are Money
Joyce Carol Oates
When de Co'n Pone's Hot
Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Atsuro Riley
lessons
Jacqueline Woodson
To the Executive Director of the Actual:
Bruce Smith
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Wallace Stevens
- Alison C. Rollins
A Supermarket in California
Allen Ginsberg
- Andrea Cohen
- Albert Goldbarth
- Chen Jun
They eat out
Margaret Atwood
Eating Together
Li-Young Lee
Days of 1994: Alexandrians
Marilyn Hacker
Ghost Supper
David Wojahn
- francine j. harris
In the Middle of Dinner
Chris Abani
- Craig Santos Perez
- Dorothea Grossman
On A Diet
William Matthews
- Craig Arnold
- Kaveh Akbar
Parthenogenesis
Brenda Shaughnessy
- Ange Mlinko
Sitting Down to Breakfast Alone
Christian Wiman
Corned Beef and Cabbage
George Bilgere
- Dean Young
- William Matthews
- Kevin Young
- Nate Marshall
- Tomás Q. Morín
- Peter Heller
Food of Love
Carolyn Kizer
- Andrew Hudgins
Appetite
Rynn Williams
Inside
Linda Hogan
Peanut Butter
Eileen Myles
- Laurie Ann Guerrero
- Roisin Kelly
The Love Cook
Ron Padgett
Cleaning a Fish
Dave Smith
- Jennifer Tonge
- Tomás Q. Morín
November Philosophers
Katie Ford
Your Invitation to a Modest Breakfast
Hannah Gamble
Everything Good between Men and Women
C. D. Wright
- Craig Arnold
Captivity
Louise Erdrich
The Invention of Cuisine
Carol Muske-Dukes
cutting greens
Lucille Clifton
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Joy Harjo
Blood Soup
Mary Ruefle
Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe
Bill Holm
Boston Year
Elizabeth Alexander
Oxtail Stew
David Dominguez
Pear
Paisley Rekdal
- Jane Hirshfield
1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer
June Jordan
- Kathleen Lynch
- Pierre Martory
Wild Peaches
Elinor Wylie
Eating the Pig
Donald Hall
- Amy Beeder
- Rachel Galvin
Abundance
Paul Violi
- Michael Metivier
- Julian Stannard
Poem
Maureen N. McLane
- Mary Moore Easter
- Paulann Petersen
Wasps' Nest
Michael Schmidt
- Marie Ponsot
- Matthew Zapruder
- Wallace Stevens
- Deborah Paredez
The Good Life
Tracy K. Smith
- Molly McQuade
Tomorrow
Bernadette Mayer
We Eat Out Together
Bernadette Mayer
What to Eat, What to Drink, and What to Leave for Poison
Camille T. Dungy
Peaches
Peter Davison
Eating Words
Katherine Hauth
To Catch a Fish
Eloise Greenfield
Toasting Marshmallows
Kristine O'Connell George
Twickham Tweer
Jack Prelutsky
The Worm
Ralph Bergengren
The Beak of the Pelican
J. Patrick Lewis
My Lemonade Stand
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
If Not for the Cat
Jack Prelutsky
Cookie
David L. Harrison
Little Miss Muffet
Mother Goose
The Tummy Beast
Roald Dahl
My Doggy Ate My Homework
Dave Crawley
- Nikki Giovanni
- Ange Mlinko
- Michael Hofmann
- W. S. Di Piero
- Kristin Naca
True Bones
John McIntyre
The Sonnet as a Silver Marrow Spoon
Adam O'Riordan
Wild Love
Kyla Marshell
In Search of the Auden Martini
Rosie Schaap
My Dinner with Dubie
Matthew Gavin Frank
- A.E. Stallings