Week of August 5th to 8th
The poet I chose this week was Esta Spalding. Two of her books reside on my shelf dedicated to poetry: Lost August and Anchoress. When I took them down and opened them up, I found an autograph and greeting handwritten to me from October 2001. So, apparently, I went to a poetry reading by Spalding in my early 20s. I have no memory of this event. But I liked her poetry enough to either buy two books at the reading, or to buy them first and take them with me for autographs.
The time matches up with the last year of my undergraduate degree. I was taking a creative writing course, and part of the requirement was to go to a number of poetry readings. Perhaps this reading was one of them. Or, it's possible that I had been assigned Spalding's books as part of another course, and was told about the reading by a professor. Again, I have no idea which it was. It's possible though, that somewhere in one of my boxes is an account of the reading that I wrote for marks, or even an essay featuring Spalding. That's an amusing thought, though I'm not sure I'm tempted to go looking. Maybe later. As a life-long journaler, I'm always fascinated by how my memory edits experiences over time. Although, when I do look back on my contemporary accounts, I often conclude that the memory I have is the superior edit!
I chose Lost August because, well, it's August. As I read through the book, the music of a few poems sounded familiar to my ears. So, I know I did read this book, possibly many times.
But the poem that struck me, in August 2025, almost a quarter century after I bought it, is not one that I remember reading.
Recipe
By Esta Spalding
At first, she wouldn't eat beef.
She lived with the living meat, swam in
the lame eyes of veal. Then,
neither chicken nor fish,
nothing with a face.
She took no lover
who ate it, no tainted kiss. Now she won't
read anything written by one carnivorous:
images brewed on flesh, on bone.
I wanted to write for her something
with a vegetable base - I'm finding my mind has
changed, branching, it drinks
sometimes entirely brightness -
--p. 46, Lost August, 1999
The poem follows the changing perspective of a "she" who follows a more and more restrictive vegan diet. Perhaps this poem stood out for me because in our contemporary time there is much conversation about "extremists." This is a word calculated to cause anxiety in those of us that don't think of ourselves as extremists, and probably eye-rolls in those who have been labeled that (does anyone self-label as an extremist, without irony?). But it's also a vague word, one that obscures more than it reveals. What is an extremist really? Are they always dangerous? How does one become one? Can any of us become one? What makes it tempting to become an extremist? How are extremists useful?
The first thing I notice about the poem, is that it does not judge "her." There is a mix of what seem to be neutral descriptions "She wouldn't eat beef" along with statements that sound like they were made by "she" herself: "[I will eat] nothing with a face." In contrast, imagine if "she" shared her beliefs about veganism in an X post, or on Tik Tok, or even in a SubStack essay. There would be a fractal explosion of rude and bad-tempered comments following it, perhaps with a complementary structure of sympathetic ones. "She" would be called all the insults of the moment, examples of which I will not even bother to give because I am not sure what is the latest fashion in insults. (Ok that is not entirely true: I've noticed the R-word is making a comeback.).
But the poem observes, with a sympathy that implies affection for "her" rather than a whole-hearted support of her beliefs. At the end, the poet playfully considers what it might mean to write "with a vegetable base." It's not clear to me what this means, and probably it's not clear to the poet either, as the poem abruptly dissolves in a self-regarding "brightness."
Perhaps this is an advantage of poetry, and a reason to read and write it, in 2025: it gives you the space to play, to take an idea to its furthest possible point, to an extreme, without threatening anyone.
Continuing deeper in: I am not, never have been, and do not expect to ever be a vegan. But, I find myself relating to the trail of negation in this poem. I wonder if many of us could, if we were honest with ourselves, and put aside any opinions we might have about veganism.
What I am talking about could perhaps be seen as the mirror image of addiction, or at least the temptation to always say yes to more: more material stuff, more stimulation, more variety. Even if it is encouraged in our consumerist society, I think most people know that always indulging yourself is at the very least a bit unseemly, and quite possibly unhealthy or immoral.
But what about its opposite and complementary impulse?
What I mean is, instead of saying Yes to every wish and impulse, you start saying No to them. Now the wishes and impulses do not exponentially magnify, they are reduced. It's like the silly game we used to play as kids with a grape. "This is Paul," we would say, holding up a single grape. You eat half of it: "This is half of Paul." Then another half "This is a quarter of Paul." "This is an eighth of Paul." "This is a sixteenth of Paul." The goal was to keep eating half of what remained until Paul was reduced to a piece of grape so small you had no choice but to finally eat the whole thing "This is none of Paul." (#whatpeopledidforfunbeforetheinternet)
If you didn't have the great good fortune that I had to be amused in this way by older siblings, then think about what can happen with ideas. Take a swathe of ideas or beliefs about something, and make half of those beliefs unacceptable. Now you are focusing on the half that remains. Your focus will be twice as intense. Now, make half that set of beliefs outside the pale. And repeat. And repeat.
Is it just me, or is this not an uncommon experience? With each "No," your attention becomes more and more focused, and if the process continues, will become hyper-focused on a tiny sliver of belief that represents the ultimate truth and rightness of something. And contrary to gluttony, which feels intuitively icky and selfish, this train of negation can feel.....well, quite virtuous and enlightened.
On the other hand, if you know someone who has abandoned themselves to this series of negations, would you not agree they are most likely insufferable? While we might have still have love for the "she" in the poem, would we look forward to going out to dinner with her? Or discussing literature?
In the last stanza, the poet observes that her mind has "changed". Perhaps this is because she has grasped the logic of her vegan subject and regards it with sympathy? But then what is the result? Her mind starts to drink "sometimes entirely brightness." The words "bright" and "light" are often coded positive, as opposed to "darkness" (somewhere malice or evil or neglect lurk). I don't think "bright" is coded positive in this poem though, or it's at least ambivalent. "Brightness" is insubstantial: no human can realistically subsist on "brightness". And the poem cuts off at this point. There is no "there, there." Maybe it starved to death ecstatically, but it's still dead.
I think this "brightness" is the same as the "deep blue air" in Philip Larkin's High Windows.
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
The subjects in "High Windows" are not denying themselves, they are embracing nihilism and doing whatever they want. But they end up in the same place ultimately as the vegan who denied herself more and more, in bright air that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
It's not endless of course, everything ends. And perhaps, to answer one of my questions, this is what makes extremists useful, at least the ones in poetry. They have the courage to take ideas to their end, so we can perhaps see where those ideas go before falling into them face-first.
Links:
Original Writing:
Writing about Poetry:
Poetry (outlining my motivations for revisiting the reading and writing of poetry)
Other things I have previously written connected to poetry:
I appreciate this so much, your musings on how the "train of negation" leads us too close to nothingness, to a very thin place. I hope to read more such explorations of poetry here. Thank you!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Gretchen! I appreciate your taking the time to leave a comment. And thanks for the encouragement. I am working on another draft but it’s a process.
DeleteOne reason I appreciate it so much is that I used to spend a lot of time writing book reviews. For various reasons I can't seem to focus on that painstaking process at this time. It makes me feel better to see that other people still do this kind of work.
DeleteThank you again! (Sorry it took me a while to check my comments filter). I don’t often write about books, but I certainly learn much more from them and remember them better if I do! Writing also motivates me to actually think about how a book or poem speaks to me (or doesn’t). I can exist in a sort of sleepwalking state where rivers of words flow over and past me every day but nothing makes a deep impression. But at this stage of life I want what I read to motivate or challenge me or illuminate in a significant way. I know if that’s going to happen though i have to work harder as a reader too!
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