Poets and Poems and Cheese

Do you like yours sharp, stinky, or mellow?

Photo by Andra C Taylor Jr on Unsplash

If you’re ever looking for a writing prompt, there are worse ways to find one than skimming through a book of quotations. I did that once, and look what I found.

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THE MYSTERIOUS SILENCE

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
	– G. K. Chesterton


It arises from contentment,
sated gratitude;
from contemplating as well the excellent mystery 
of milk made solid, made salt, 
primal nurture sliced and spreading under the knife,
tanging on the tongue.

It is a silence that invites
the cheese itself to speak from the poet’s mouth:
some (like some poems) in pungent, confounding syntax
as far from sense as from simple pleasure;
others plainer, softer-spoken,
unction and quiet savor befriending daily bread.

It is a silence too that speaks
of the secretive nature of poets:
those with palates lacerated by shards of feta, 
blades of Stilton, unwilling to admit
that they would rather spit than swallow;
others reveling chastely in mozzarella 
or Monterey Jack, half ashamed
that mouthfuls of such mild mysteries 
can make them rhyme and sing. 

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[You can listen to an audio version of this poem using the little widget above the photograph.]

Cheese of any kind has been an acquired taste for me, and there are some I’ll never enjoy. I have a quiet-loving palate, unimpressed by “loud” flavors — extra hot, extra sharp, extra pungent — the same way my social palate is unimpressed by loud, self-centering people however brilliant and renowned. But I do enjoy the unction and quiet savor that a mellow, just-moist-enough cheese can add to almost any conversation with other foods.

Can I offer a similar “taste manifesto” on behalf of my poetic palate? I’ll try: again, that palate is uninterested in loudness for its own sake, cleverness for its own sake, poems that seem to have been written with no reader other than the poet in mind. I like a poem that will show me something beyond its own poem-ness, where the poet is using their skill with language to befriend and enrich the image or thought or moment they’re describing.

Of course skill and originality come into it as well, just as quality of ingredients and care in production come into making cheese. But the basic question of intent remains: what is this for, what’s it meant to do? If it’s meant to shock the palate … well, somebody else will probably eat it up, but I’ll pass. Life is confounding and pungent enough as it is; I’m better nourished by the soft-spoken and plain.

What kind of cheese do you like? What “flavor” of poem makes you want to come back for seconds? Tell about it in the Comments if you’re so inclined, and if you’re a Roquefort fan we can still be friends.