Plotnik goes literary
Lately, writing-guru Plotnik hasn't had much time to demonstrate his own suggestions outside the prose of his various books and articles. But now and then, in the interstices between writing and book-promotion, he sneaks in a literary effort. Among the latest published or scheduled to be are:
---Chapter One of the novel, Dwell Time, a finalist in the Chapter One competition of Booth: A Journal. To be published in 2011/12.
---"Dwell Time," a short story, in the Spring 2011 Thema, whose theme was "The Trip Not Taken."
"Weeping Willow, Move On," a poem, in The Comstock Review, Fall/Winter 2011 issue.
"At the Home for Vogue Words," a poem, in The Comstock Review, Spring/Summer 2010 issue.
"At Gordon Parks's Crib," a poem, in Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz &
Literature, Summer 2010. (See poem below)
Plotnik went to high school with Gordon Parks, Jr., son of the famous African-American photographer and author. With young Gordon and other friends, Plotnik would listen to jazz recordings at Gordon Sr.'s ever-so-mellow house in then-segregated White Plains, N.Y.. Gordon, Jr., who became a filmmaker, died tragically in a helicopter accident during a film shooting.
At Gordon Parks’s Crib
So this is how black folks live,
I thought, as a jazz bass shook
the speakers and we eyeballed
the baby grand and studio mikes,
the paintings, and of course the
fashion shots and Harlem faces
smartly mounted on the walls
of the photographer's pad,
or crib, as we called it then,
a small ranch model on a hillside
tidy and green, an amenable
exception in our red-lined burb.
Thigh-to-thigh on a leather couch,
we popped our fingers to Miles and Bird,
we too-hip-for-words gaggle of
white kids from White Plains High
hanging with Gordon Jr., who died
a young man in a fallen whirlybird.
And sometimes Gordon Parks himself.
tossed us a quick "Wha's happenin'?"
as I all but drowned in grooviness.
* * *
Copyright Arthur Plotnik
An earlier poem:
The Menu Poet
(Published in Harpur Palate, Vol. 7, Issue 1)
Her early work appeared at Ed’s Diner
(Akron), where she married the phrases
chicken-fried and cheese-stuffed
to the steak and omelette entries.
She knew that such savory items
as butternut squash, rack of lamb,
forest mushrooms, mousse and flan
could levitate menus on their own,
but Ed’s menu lay flat in its grease
until she imagined dishes animated
by action verbs---energetic participles
of preparation, some topped by nouns
as in her first inspired couplet,
Pit-roasted thigh of wild antelope
in sesame-thickened mustard sauce,
for which uninspired Ed canned her.
In wintry Midwest bistros she knew
dark times, as seen in the curious lines,
black-corn-masa crepes steamed and
rolled around inky corn mushrooms.
Mixed appetites met these efforts;
then, like fiery La Mancha wine sauce,
an epiphany came upon her, of verbs
to signal fussing on behalf of diners;
not the moiling of baked or fricasseed,
but the crusting, dusting, and dotting
once reserved for moguls and maharajas;
delicate actions of the chefs de cuisine.
In New York such participles as doused
and brushed caught the critics’ notice,
and with her Thai green-chili-rubbed
fennel-marinated bass she dazzled them.
But the poet wrote not to please critics;
only to delight beloved diners, for whom
her menus sang of breasts jalapeZo-glazed,
and loins pistachio-crusted, citrus-planked.
Legend, doyenne of menuists, she aged
as gracefully as cognac until the year
she wilted like warmed salad leaves,
leaving for her epitaph these words:
No fruit but macerated,
no pear but maple-laced;
no tort but three-milk soaked,
no death but ash-dusted,
earth-layered,
and dotted with tears.
(Copyright Arthur Plotnik)